Court to rule on judgment review in suit filed by Nigerian company against ECOWAS parliament

The ECOWAS Court will on 23 February 2023 rule on whether to entertain a request by a Nigerian company for the revision of its earlier judgment in which it dismissed a suit by the company asking for the payment of $25,000 as compensation by the ECOWAS Parliament for the breach of contract.

In its judgment of 12th December 2019, the Court’s three member panel of Justices Edward Amoako Asante, Gberi-be Ouattara and Dupe Atoki had said it was ‘ill-founded’ for the company, PI Nigeria Limited “to claim payment for the period of time it did not provide any service to the Defendant, the ECOWAS Parliament” especially “since the ECOWAS Commission had verbally notified PI Nigeria of the involuntary termination of the contract.”

The ECOWAS Parliament entered into a contract with the company on 1st January 2013 for the provision of technical support to ensure a smooth and hitch free operation of Accounting Software Maintenance MS Dynamic Software which had to be terminated after the Parliament migrated to the System Application Product (SAP) in March 2015 in compliance with a Community policy.

The Defendant told the Court it had notified the Applicant verbally of migrating to another technology as required by all ECOWAS Institutions prior to the end of paid period of technical service which meant that the services of PI Nigeria were no longer required during the contested period.

In the suit ECW/CCJ/APP/36/17/REV filed on 12 March 2020 asking for the review of the  Court’s judgment ECW/CCJ/JUD/36/19 delivered on 12th of December, 2019, Mr. Sola Egbeyinka, lawyer representing the company said the request was based on new facts, mainly a breach of fair hearing arising from a change of panel of judges hearing the matter without prior knowledge of the Applicant and the failure of the Court to reschedule the matter for fresh hearing by the new panel.

The lawyer told the Court that unknown to the Applicant at the time the Court delivered judgment, different panel of judges heard the case on the 28th of February 2019 and on the 15th of May 2019 respectively, and arrived at a decision that may have been different if the entire proceedings of the case were heard by the same panel, adding that the judgment also revealed misconceived fact/ finding on the contractual obligations of the parties involved in the case.

He argued that the lack of response from the Defendant indicated the admission of the facts canvassed by the Applicant.

Among other things, the Applicant is asking the Court to declare that there was a valid and subsisting agreement between both parties that the Defendant failed to abide by that contractual agreement and equally failed, refused and/or neglected to pay the Applicant the outstanding sum of $25,000 from the contractual agreement.

The Applicant also sought an order of the Court compelling the Defendant to pay the outstanding sum of $25,000.

After today’s hearing on the Applicant’s application for review of the Court’s judgment, the presiding judge, Justice Edward Amoako Asante adjourned the case to 23rd of February 2023 for Ruling on admissibility.

Also on the panel are Justices Gberi-Be Ouattara and Dupe Atoki.