Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi responding to application seeking his recusal from Imperial Bank Limited.
BY SAM ALFAN.
Three law firms have urged the court to dismiss an application seeking their recusal from a Ksh 42 billion fraud case filed by Imperial Bank Limited.
The law firm of Ahmednasir Abdullahi, Coulson Harney and Njoroge Nani Mungai of Muriu Mungai and Co. Advocates told Justice Francis Tuiyot there is no conflict of interest as alleged by IBL Lawyer Philip Murgor.
Lawyer Ahmednassir said that Murgor has failed to show that his law firm labors under a conflict of interest.
“For a lawyer to be disqualified from a matter, he must be in possession of confidential information and there must be a reasonable apprehension by the party that the information is likely to be leaked,” he said
“This is only a delaying tactic by Murgor. He is also creating a false impression so as to get us out of the proceedings yet our clients have already decided we should represent them in the case,” he added.
The law firm of Coulson Harney was also opposed to the application by IBL. In a sworn affidavit, Jonathan Stewart Coulson said the claims raised by Murgor have no basis since his firm has never undertaken any work for the Imperial Bank limited.
The application he said was made in bad faith and ought to be dismissed since IBL has failed to show there is any conflicts of interest by o firm.
Murgor filed the application two weeks ago seeking disqualification of the firms on grounds that they have been deeply involved in Imperial banks restructuring and cannot therefore act for the directors of IBL.
Murgor claimed that all the concerned advocates are potential or actual witnesses and hence cannot act as advocates, more particularly as advocates against their former client the bank.
