Nigerian Investment and Security firm, BGL Security has responded to the 20 year ban imposed on some of its directors by the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC on Thursday. The Commission had on Thursday issued a pronouncement canceling the Registration of BGL as well as banning several of its executives including banning Albert Okumagba and Chibundu Edozie for 20 years respectively.
In response BGL has explained that SEC’s decision disregarded a legal proceeding that was ongoing and that the decision was therefore illegal. Here is the full press release from BGL
Dear Valued Clients,
We refer to our ongoing issues with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the matter of the Investment and Securities Act 2007 between Afolabi Gabriel Oluwaseyi & 8 Others and BGL Securities Limited & 22 others which the SEC placed before its Administrative Proceedings Committee (APC) with case number APC/1/2016.
Although the case is subject to a current litigation at the Federal High Court and therefore subjudice, we have been made aware that the SEC in disregard of judicial process went ahead to hold the APC meeting. As law abiding citizens, BGL and its executives in obedience to the arising judicial process did not attend the meeting and were not represented. We are therefore quite shocked the APC could reach a decision on a case that is subjudice and without giving us a fair hearing. The SEC, through the APC decided to withdraw the operating licence of two of our capital market subsidiaries, BGL Securities Limited and BGL Asset Management Limited and also placed fines and various suspension sentences on our directors and staff members.
Since we have been putting a lot of efforts towards the speedy resolution of the issues through the raising of capital and selling of assets to settle all outstanding obligations, we are surprised by this latest action from the regulator. However, our legal advisers has advised that the decision is illegal in the eyes of the law and would therefore be overturned hence we would do all that is lawfully possible to resolve the issues with the SEC, settle our obligations and resume capital market activities very shortly.
We are aware of the inconveniences that our continuous delay in commencement of trading is causing you; however we will like to assure you that we are putting together significant efforts in ensuring that we start to trade very soon. We are also very ready to work with you to achieve your immediate trading objectives without much negative impact to you.
We thank you for usual cooperation as we assure you of our highest regards always.
