Court orders Scotia to repay Gloria’s $3.5 million

Scotiabank Jamaica has been ordered by the Supreme Court to repay more than $3.5 million it claimed was transferred to the public purse from a dormant account belonging to the late proprietor of Gloria’s Seafood Restaurant.

Gloria Harris-Prawl, founder of the popular restaurant chain, died in 2001 leaving behind $3,585,778.32 in her account at the bank’s now-shuttered King Street branch.

The order was made by Justice Kirk Anderson last Friday, ending a lawsuit that was filed by her daughter, Tanya Prawl, after the bank allegedly failed to provide evidence to support its claim that the money was transferred to the Consolidated Fund through the Accountant General’s Department (AGD).

Prawl was named administrator of her mother’s estate via a court order in February 2021, records show.

Through her attorneys, Leonard Green and Nyron Wright from the law firm Chen Green & Co, she asked the court to strike out the bank’s defence to the lawsuit, arguing that it had no real prospect of success, and order the repayment of the entire sum.

Anderson agreed.

“I find that the bank’s defence is weak and lacking in substance, and therefore has no realistic prospect of success,” he wrote in his decision.

“Based on the bank’s defence and supporting documents, I find that its prospect of success fits squarely in the fanciful domain,” the judge added.

Scotiabank claimed, in its defence to the lawsuit, that the $3.5 million was transferred from Harris-Prawl’s account to the AGD, in accordance with the process outlined in Section 126 of the Banking Services Act.

The legislative provision stipulates that the minister of finance shall cause a notice to be published in the Gazette and a daily newspaper where monies under the control of deposit-taking institutions remain unclaimed for 15 years or more.

NOTICE SHOULD BE PUBLISHED TWICE

The notice must be published at least twice and should give full particulars about the funds; the period for which it was unclaimed; and indicate that the monies will be transferred to the AGD a year later if they remain unclaimed, the legislation also stipulates.

Ebunoluwa Akinladejo, a manager and legal counsel for Scotiabank, indicated in an affidavit filed as part of the bank’s defence that on February 24, 2018, Scotiabank published a notice in The Gleaner newspaper listing several accounts – including Harris Prawl's – with unclaimed balances.

Akinladejo said that on April 12, 2019, more than a year after the notice was published, the money belonging to the Gloria’s founder was debited from her account and transferred to the AGD.

However, Anderson, in explaining his decision, noted that Scotiabank “did not properly adopt” the procedures set out in the Banking Services Act.

He indicated, as examples, that there was no evidence before the court that the notice was published in the Gazette or on the website of the finance ministry.

In addition, Anderson said there was no evidence that the notice was published a second time in the newspaper.

“The lack of evidence to indicate that the bank had complied with the applicable act has left the court to infer that the bank had acted in contravention of the Banking Services Act with respect to unclaimed monies in the deceased’s account,” the high court judge reasoned.

He said Scotiabank’s defence “could have been a substantive one” and could have been a total answer to the lawsuit “if it had properly applied” Section 126 of the law.

“However, simply stating that it had acted lawfully is not enough. It needed to have led sufficient evidence before this court … that it had acted legally in transferring the funds from the deceased’s account to the AGD,” Anderson wrote.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com