Sikirat Shehu
Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS) has won an appeal judgment in the Court of Appeal, Ilorin Division against a consulting firm, Mazars Consulting, over N567.7 million claim.
The appellate court, in an unanimous decision, read by the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, Ilorin division, U.I. Ndukwe-Anyanwu, struck out the entire claims of the plaintiffs; Adeyemi Sanni Sheriff, Adedoyin Sanni, and Bamidele Ogunlowo, trading under the name and style of “Mazars Consulting” on September 10, 2021.
The plaintiff had instituted a case against KW-IRS in respect of the recovery of a total sum of N569,765,358.43 for an alleged commission on a purported service rendered to the KW-IRS as a Tax Audit Monitoring Agent (TAMA).
Convinced by the merit of the case, the plaintiff through its counsel, A. K. Ajibade & Associates, instituted the action under the Undefended List procedure.
The defendant (KW-IRS) promptly joined issues with the plaintiffs by filing grounds for defence, saying that the plaintiffs had not rendered any service that could warrant the payment of such claims being sought against the defendant.
The plaintiffs got judgment in their favour against KW-IRS on November 5, 2020 at the Kwara State High Court in a ruling delivered by Justice E. B. Mohammed.
Dissatisfied by the judgment of the Kwara State High Court, the revenue agency filed in an appeal against the judgment of the court before the Court of Appeal, Ilorin Division and at the same time, filed and moved a motion for the stay of execution of the said judgment pending the determination of the appeal.
Deciding on the appeal, the Court of Appeal formulated two issues vis-a-vis disclosure or non-joinder of the proper parties before the Court and the propriety or otherwise of not moving the entire claims of the Plaintiffs from the Undefended List Procedure to the General Cause List by the trial Court.
In the end, the appellate Court in an unanimous decision struck out the entire claims of the Plaintiffs on September 10, 2021, having resolved the entire issues in favour of the KW-IRS.