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ICC throws out Woyome's petition over GH¢51.2m debt

The arbitration businessman Mr Alfred Agbesi Woyome filed at the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) over the controversial GH¢51.2 million debt he owed the state has been thrown out.

The court threw out the case at its preliminary jurisdiction stage and awarded a cost of $5000 against Mr Woyome. This was made known on Thursday August 3, 3017.

Mr Woyome filed the case, titled “Alfred Agbesi Woyome (Ghana) vs REPUBLIC OF GHANA (Ghana)” in April 2017 as one of his attempts at the international courts to defend the judgement debt paid to him by the state after the Supreme Court ruled that he received the money fraudulently.

The apex court ruled that Mr Woyome received the money from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government for an invalid contract between the state and Waterville Holdings Limited in 2006 for the construction of stadia for CAN 2008.

Efforts by state officials to retrieve the money have not been successful as Mr Woyome insists the law has not been fair to him.

Mr Woyome has, however, refunded GH¢4 million out of the total GH¢51.2 million to the state.

Although he subsequently promised to pay the outstanding balance by quarterly installments of GH¢5 million from April 1, 2017, he has reneged on that promise.

The relevant part of Article 6(4) at the international court says, "The arbitration shall proceed if and to the extent that the Court is prima facie satisfied that an arbitration agreement under the Rules may exist."

By deciding to throw out the case, the ICC has concluded that there can be no arbitration without an arbitration agreement between the parties, that is between Mr Woyome and Ghana or an underlying contractual agreement between Mr Woyome and Ghana.

Apart from the ICC case. Mr Woyome, has also dragged the Attorney-General (A-G) to the African Court of Justice in Arusha, Tanzania, in the same matter.

Meanwhile his oral examination which was started by the Attorney General at the Supreme Court would be continued on October 2 and 3, 2017 due to the legal vacation which started from August 1 and ends on September 31.

The oral examination forms part of attempts by the AG to find out if he owns property that the state can go after to defray the cost as well as find out how he spent the money which was paid to him in 2010.

The Supreme Court at its sitting on July 24, 2017 ordered him to produce the property number and documents of a house he claims belonged to his brother at Abelenkpe in Accra.

The court further ordered the registrar to subpoena the Head of the Lands Commission to come and ascertain the true owner of the said property.

Source: ghanaweb.com

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