The High Court on Monday directed the Bangladesh Bank and the Bangladesh Security and Exchange Commission (BSEC) to investigate the complaint of Sterling Creations Limited, a RMG company, against the Fareast Finance and Investment Limited (FFIL), a non bank financial institution (NBFI), within three months.
It also directed BSEC to take into account the investigation report before further reconstruction of the board of Fareast Finance.
The High Court bench of Justice Syed Refaat Ahmed delivered the verdict after disposing of a petition that was filed seeking winding up of Fareast Finance.
Barrister Mustafizur Rahman Khan and Barrister Mehreen Hassan appeared in the court hearing on behalf of Sterling Creations, while Barrister AM Masum and Barrister Sayed Mahsib Hossain represented the Fareast Finance.
Barrister Sayed Mahsib Hossain said that the application for winding up of Fareast Finance is disposed of by not passing any order of winding up which was prayed by Sterling Creations Limited.
With this it is again established that the High Court is not inclined to shut down financial institutions on the basis of claims of a depositor, added the lawyer.
Barrister Mehreen Hassan said if the BB and BSEC failed to investigate the complaint within March in 2025 then HC will give liberty to Sterling Creations to take steps under law.
In the context of continuous failure to pay depositors money, Sterling Creations Limited, an RMG company, filed the petition with the High Court last year seeking winding up of Fareast Finance. The petitioner also requested the HC to appoint a liquidator for the company.
According to the Dhaka Stock exchange, the FFIL is facing continuous loss over the past years. It faced a loss of Tk 2.3 billion in 2022. Due to its financial hardship it is failing to pay the dues of the depositors.
Sterling said in its petition that it was maintaining two FDRs with the FFIL worth Tk 56.97 million and Tk 54.33 million subject to 11.50 percent profit per annum.
On January 1 in 2019 Sterling requested the FFIL to encash one of its FDR and effectuate the transfer of the funds to the petitioner's bank account. Following the request an amount of Tk 15 million was transferred to Sterling's account.
Although the FDRs matured in April in 2019, the FFIL didn't pay any further amount to the petitioner, according to the petition. When the petitioner requested the FFIL to encash the term deposits along with accumulative profit the FFIL verbally communicated with them saying that it was suffering from liquidity crisis, also said the petition.
Sterling finally on June 8 in 2023 sent a demand notice for the FDRs money mentioning that if the payment was not made or compounded for to the reasonable satisfaction of the petitioner the FFIL would be deemed unable to pay its debts entitling the petitioner to present an application before the HC for winding up the FFIL.
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