FORMER Head of Investment at Stanbic Bank, Ms Shose Sinare, has filed a case in the High Court of Tanzania against the financial institution as the first defendant and Standard Bank Plc now part of ICBC of China as the second defendant.
The former Miss Tanzania 2006 is seeking
damages amounting to 30 million US dollars on the basis of some
allegations against her that she participated or was involved in
committing bribery in the transactions to raise a bond of 600 million US
dollars for the government of Tanzania by the virtue of her position
working at Stanbic Bank.
The main issues she raises are that
Standard Bank Plc made serious allegations against her without availing
her opportunity to be heard.
According to Ms Sinare, Standard Bank,
having succeeded in winning the mandate from the government of Tanzania
to raise the sum of 600 million US dollars for infrastructural
development projects, on its own volition, made a self-report to Serious
Fraud Offences (SFO) for having failed to stop those working in its
mandate not to engage in giving bribery to Tanzanian officials to secure
a bid.
In the document seen by the ‘Daily
News’, Ms Sinare hints that Standard Bank Plc deliberately or by design
abdicated its responsibility by making serious allegations that rogue
senior officials namely the CEO and Sinare, were responsible for
introducing a third party to the negotiation process and transactions,
known as Enterprise Growth Market Advisors Limited (EGMA) as if their
responsibility and activities were not known to principal participants,
specifically Standard Bank.
Standard Bank claimed that EGMA was
smuggled in the transactional process of raising the bond, and was paid 1
per cent part of 2.4 per cent of the gross proceeds and used the amount
to induce representatives of the government of Tanzania to improperly
perform relevant activities in favour of Standard Bank in relation to
the transaction.
It is against this backdrop that Ms
Sinare is taking up issues with Stanbic Bank, the first defendant in the
case for making gross misrepresentations and falsehoods about what
transpired in the negotiation process and execution of the Agreement
between principal parties and between the principal party (2nd
defendant) and third party EGMA.
According to the document, the plaintiff
charges that Standard Bank misrepresented the fact by stating that it
was not aware of the third party, that is, EGMA in the transaction,
while in truth it was aware of the EGMA as part of the transaction team
long time even before the signing of the Mandate and Fee Letters. She
claimed that all misrepresentations made also include falsehoods about
the status and activities of EGMA.
“The truth the draft Collaboration
Agreement was drafted by Anne Marie Salan (Debt Primary Markets) and
circulated to the deal team under the supervision of Florian Von
Harting, both employees of Standard Bank in London,” reads part of the
document.
Ms Sinare noted that Standard Bank made
false claim that she resigned from the employment at Stanbic Bank to
conceal from investigation of the role of EGMA in the transaction.
This is justified by the fact that after
her resignation, she was asked to travel to Johannesburg, South Africa
where the Standard Group is headquartered and was questioned without
being notified that she was herself already accused of committing a
serious criminal offence, without benefit of counsel and without being
provided with any report to respond to accusations made against her.
It is quite clear that Standard bank was
trying to find a scapegoat to protect her interests. According to Ms
Sinare, while she was in South Africa at a breakfast meeting, Mr Helmut
Engelbrecht, the Head of Investment Banking in Africa, in response to
the call made by the two banks, stated to Ms Sinare that; “It was
essential that the bank is not in any way implicated in the allegations
of or impression of bribery because if it was it could lose it banking
licence in the UK or forced to refund investors the entire US $ 600
million US dollars and or lose a very important transaction with the
ICBC of China, which was negotiating to sell its business in London”.
The plaintiff is convinced that the
Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) was resorted to by Standard Bank
for the purpose of saving their international business interests to the
detriment of the plaintiff.
The damages sought by the plaintiff are
related to her tarnished image because of the allegations citing her for
wrong doing in the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) between
Standard Bank and SFO.
The plaintiff claims that she was not
called upon to defend herself and tell her side of what she knows about
EGMA and the transactions that took place between parties.
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