A bitter dispute over alleged breach of banker-customer relationship between a transport company and Barclays Bank of Kenya Ltd has now spilled into the courts.
AO Bayusuf & Sons Ltd is seeking to be paid Sh25.9 million by the lender, claiming the money was unlawfully debited from its account.
According to the firm, the bank in March 2015 offered a convectional asset facility to it but later the company indicated that it would prefer to have the loan converted to meet Islamic finance principles.
AO Bayusuf & Sons further says that Barclays offered to convert the Sh300 million loan into Murabaha facility as part of their Islamic La Riba Asset finance product for financing a fleet of trailers and prime movers.
“The said purported Murabaha facility did not meet the requirement of a Murabaha lending structure as defined by the Islamic Finance principles,” say suit documents. It also argues that the purported Murabaha facility was not disbursed as agreed but was made available over a period of one year and that it was given Sh240 million instead of Sh300 million.
In March 2018, the transport company says that after opting to move its business to another bank, the amount outstanding on its loans with the bank were settled except for the purported ‘La Riba’ loan which the bank had charged and debited its account with an extra Sh25 million over and above the outstanding facility.
Through relationship manager Simeon Mzugha, Barclays says that it had contractual and legal justification to debit.
The case has been fixed for hearing on February 27.
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