AELEX is pleased to have represented the successful defendant, RETAIL SUPERMARKETS NIGERIA LIMITED (RSNL), in a suit instituted by UNILEVER NIGERIA PLC in SUIT NO: LD/ADR/3639/2021.

Unilever Nigeria Plc alleged that after an internal financial review in 2019, it discovered that RSNL refused to settle invoices for goods supplied between 2016 and 2017, valued at over Five Hundred Million Naira.

Unilever Nigeria Plc alleged that after an internal financial review in 2019, it discovered that RSNL refused to settle invoices for goods supplied between 2016 and 2017, valued at over Five Hundred Million Naira.

On behalf of the Defendant, we challenged the entirety of the Claimant’s case on the grounds that the goods on the disputed invoices were neither ordered by the Defendant nor delivered to the Defendant. The Defendant further denied knowledge, authorship and/or ownership of the names, signatures and stamps on the alleged proof of delivery of the goods and submitted that the purchase order numbers were fictitious.

The court heard the evidence of forensic document examiners for the parties, both who testified that the documents placed before the court by the Claimant were forged. In a well-considered judgment delivered by Honourable Justice Lateefa A. Okunnu of the High Court of Lagos State, the court held that the Claimant failed to discharge the burden of proving that the goods were ordered by the Defendant and delivered to the Defendant, and as such, the foundation of the Claimant’s claim for unpaid goods effectively collapsed.

The Court also found it curious that no steps were taken by the Claimant to report the allegations of fraud to the police for a criminal investigation and dismissed the suit in its entirety, in favour of the Defendant

This case underscores the established principle of law that the burden of proof is on who asserts the existence of a thing, without which a case is fatally flawed. It also underscores the essential role of criminal investigations in civil claims for fraud.

For more information, please contact drp@aelex.com