Contents

1. Summary
   1. Facts
   2. Holding
2. Comment
3. Further resources
4. The Decision

Summary

Miss Folashade Molehin (the “Applicant”) was awarded conpensation in the sum of N7.5 million when United Bank of Africa PLC (the “Respondent”) were held liable for breaching the Constitution and Nigeria's data privacy laws when it created an account without first obtaining the Applicant's consent so to do and ignore her requests to close the offending account.

Facts

Miss Folashade Molehin (the “Applicant”) was employed to work remotely by an organisation known as EraConnect, a subsidiary of Bashirat Are Consulting Firm domiciled in the United States of America and the Applicant opened an account with United Bank of Africa (the “Respondent”) through which her empoyee would channel her salary.

BACF subsequently paid her salary into the account mentioned above and a remittance advice confirming the transaction issued to her.

Unfortunately, the monies never reflected in that account.

The monies were instead credited by the Respondent into a different account bearing a different number purportedly opened by the Applicant but which actions she alleges, were done without her knowledge or consent actions which she avers violated her constitutional rights to privacy and the country's data protection laws.

The Respondent refused or neglected to act on her protests and the offending acount remained active and operational at the filing of the suit.

The Respondent averred that the original account created by the Respondent as constituted could not carry the intended financial transactions due to a conflict with Nigeria's applicable (local currency funds transfers) laws which only allowed diaspora funds to be recieved in USD (not local currency). In an effort to secure the transaction, preserve the customer-banker relationship and protect the Respondents vital interests by preventing the funds transfer from aborting, the Respondent bank created a legally aligned USD domiciliary account to hold the funds for the benefit of the Applicant.

The court found that the Respondent failed to take any action to regularise their initial actions by obtainingthe Applicants consent as required. They also failed to act on the Applicant's deletion request.

Holding

The High Court held that:

• The opening of the offending accout violated the Applicant's rights under the constitution and the data protection laws.
• The Respondents failure to obtain the Applicants consent violated the data protection laws.