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A PASAY
Court has ordered the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB)
to pay a client an estimated P1 billion after the lender
was found to have overcharged E. Ganzon Inc. (EGI), a
real-estate developer with properties in Metro Manila.
Besides involving attorney’s fees, court suit costs,
damages, and interest, the amount covers the various
forms of overpayment collected by the Philippines’
thirteenth-largest lender from EGI from April 2000 to
May 2001.
In a
decision dated December 18, 2007, the court said the
company only owed the bank a total of P618 million
overall.
In
mid-1998, after EGI failed to keep its debt payments
current, the lender collected P400 million more than the
principal through various transactions undertaken from
April 2000 to May 2001. These transactions included
foreclosure, or repossessing mortgaged properties whose
values were previously agreed upon, and dacion en pago,
which allows the use of real-estate assets to pay for
debts, provided that both the creditor and the borrower
agree on the properties’ values.
Besides
declaring that EGI’s debts were already fully settled,
the court also instructed the bank to pay the company
some P158,378,177.82 in excess of foreclosure proceeds
plus 12-percent interest per annum from April 13, 2000
until full payment. This is in addition to
P166,127,368.50 in dacion en pago payments plus 12
percent interest per annum from May 8, 2001
aa until full payment, P32,296,77.78 for repossessing
movables, furniture, fixtures, and equipment plus
12-percent interest from April 13, 2000 until full
payment; P87,578,846.60 for repossessing 28 condominium
units in EGI-Rufino Plaza in Taft Avenue plus 12-percent
interest until full payment; P1.55 million in court
filing fees, P30 million in moral damages, P10 million
in exemplary damages, and attorney’s fees equivalent to
10 percent of all amounts due the plaintiff.
“All in
all, total payments of plaintiff EGI to UCPB is
P1,070,719.368.50, this amount representing the combined
value of the foreclosed properties and the properties
subject to dacion en pago,” said the decision, penned by
Judge Jesus B. Mupas of Pasay’s Regional Trial Court
Branch 112.
The
UCPB’s lawyer in this case, Atty. Eduardo de Mesa, said
he has already filed an appeal to reverse the lower
court’s decision.
“EGI is
just looking for a way to skip paying its obligations,”
de Mesa told the BusinessMirror in a Monday phone
interview.
The
court had also said that “UCPB committed breach of
contract when it foreclosed some of the properties of
EGI at merely P723,592,000. The correct valuation of the
foreclosed properties is P904,491,052 and it is this
amount that must be deemed to have been paid to UCPB
when the foreclosure was effected.”
According to the ruling, EGI claimed that “the principal
loan amounts, interest charges, transaction costs were
padded to reflect a bigger amount of indebtedness.”
For this
reason, EGI filed a separate criminal case in a Makati
City court against six bank officers in October 2001.
Among those named in the suit included Lorenzo V. Tan,
the bank’s former president, Jeronimo Kilayko, UCPB
corporate secretary and University of the
Philippines
law professor Virgilio Jacinto, UCPB first vice
president Enrique Gana, UCPB vice president Jaime
Jacinto, and UCPB assistant vice president Emily Lazaro.
Among
the 42 universal and commercial banks in the country,
the United Coconut Planters Bank ranked thirteenth in
terms of total assets. As of December 2006, its assets
amounted to P107 billion, up by 3 percent in the same
period in 2005. The bank’s total contingent account in
2006 totaled to P41 billion. (With Jesse Edep) |
