Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom
Lawyers for Birim Group LLC who have filed a writ at a court in Chicago, United States, against Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, his family and companies to retrieve lost investments of some Ghanaians, have debunked assertion by the lead defendants that their action is politically motivated.
They are saying that the case was filed as far back as December 4, 2020, and their office actually waited for the Christmas holidays to be over before they served Dr. Nduom with a copy and added that if they wanted to smear him politically, it would have been done immediately after it was filed, not five months later, insisting “we should rather be interested in finding out who released it now and why?”
Fighting Back
Following the filing of the writ, which is also called complaint in the U.S. federal court system, Dr. Nduom, founder and former flag bearer of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), denied the accusations through his representatives, describing the action by Birim as an attempt to use the court to smear him as a Ghanaian entrepreneur and political leader.
“Birim Group itself is a murky LLC whose members the complaint does not identify. It does not claim to have had any dealings with Dr. Nduom or the other defendants,” the defendants’ lawyers stated in a motion to dismiss the case.
“Rather, Birim Group claims to have paid for the claims of two Ghanaian citizens, Mavis Amanpene Sekyere and Nana Kwame Twum Barimah (the “Assignors”), who have what at most, amounts to breach-of-contract claims under Ghanaian law against Ghanaian bank, GN Bank and Ghanaian investment firm, Gold Coast Fund Management (GCFM) and collectively, the Ghanaian Defendants,” the defendants argued.
The statement indicated that the plaintiff company did not buy these “claims to recover Ghanaian deposits,” but rather under the pretext to “malign Dr. Nduom, his family and anyone who does business with him.”
Factual Allegations
“In lieu of factual allegations as to each defendant, the complainant alleges that all corporate forms should be disregarded and each defendant should be deemed an alter ego, not just of each other defendant, but also of each employee of each corporate defendant, including the Ghanaian defendants.
“No facts are alleged to support this extraordinary conclusion,” the statement pointed out, and added that “complainant ultimately fails against the US defendant because no US defendant is alleged to have done anything to cause either the assignors harm – and the focus must be on the assignors.”
No Business
The defendants insisted that Birim Group had no business with them and that the company’s claim it paid assignors’ claims hence the suit amounted to “a political smear” and not to engage in a legitimate exercise to use the court to resolve a legal dispute.”
“The complaint in this case is an object lesson in why Rule 9(b) exists and applies to RICO and fraud-based claims. Birim Group bought and paid for the right to bring this complaint, including on behalf of an Assignor who is pursuing the same substantive claim where it belongs – in a Ghanaian court against a Ghanaian defendant.
“The Assignors’ losses are $52,219 and $30,000, respectively. So why did Birim Group buy the claims and file such an overblown complaint, invoking RICO, multiple frauds and tort theories? The answer was stated at the outset: because this case is a political smear and not a legitimate use of the court to resolve a legal dispute,” the lawyers argued further.
Returning Fire
Lawyers for Birim said they were only reacting to a response given by Dr. Nduom’s team that the action they are pursing is politically motivated and said the case has nothing to do with Ghanaian politics, and they have no interest whatsoever in smearing Dr. Nduom.
They said all they are interested in is to recover the funds the individuals assigned to their client, Birim, and insisted that they do not litigate in the media before suggesting to DAILY GUIDE to review the actual filed documents in Chicago.
They said since the pleadings have been filed, they are public documents and anyone could pay a small fee to get it from the Chicago Court website.
No Malice
“We found that the writ (they call it a complaint in the U.S. federal court system) which was released to the Ghanaian public had an important exhibit, showing the money wire transfers. Whoever released the writ, apparently, wanted to hide it, and so they decided not to attach that very important document to the main writ, which they released. Who stands to gain with this information being hidden when the writ itself was released?” the attorney said.
More Issues
They said it would be prudent for the Nduom camp to show the person, party, individual or group that is conducting a political smear against the businessman, and added that if the government has not issued an arrest warrant and does not appear to be doing anything against him to recover the GN and Gold Coast funds, “why would that same government smear him?”
Birim’s attorneys said further that if Dr. Nduom could not allegedly pay the depositors of GN and Gold Coast their investments, “where did he get the money to buy a bank in Chicago?” adding “did he have a business in the U.S. that was generating cumulative income sufficient to be used to buy the Chicago bank?”
“If he had a business in the U.S. what was the name of the business, what did the business do, where is the business located, and who run the business while he was in Ghana these past 20 years busy running 60 other companies and running for political office?” they said, adding “and if he cannot identify any business operations, where did the money used in buying a Chicago bank come from since his businesses here have all failed?”
The lawyers said what Birim is interested in is getting its clients’ money back and would not want to engage in any political smear as being pushed by the defendants.
Main Action
On the writ, Birim is citing Paa Kwesi Nduom, aka Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom, Papa Kwesi Nduom, Kwesi P. Nduom, an individual; GN Bank, an Illinois federally chartered financial institution; International Business Solutions, LLC, a Virginia Limited Liability Company; Groupe Nduom USA LLC; a Nevada company; GN USA LLC, a Nevada company; GN Money, LLC, a Nevada company; Groupe Nduom, a Ghana company; GN Bank, a Ghana company; Gold Coast Fund Management, aka Blackshield Capital Management, a Ghana company; Yvonne Nduom, an individual; Nana Kweku Nduom, an individual; Edjah Nduom, an individual, Nana Aba Nduom, an individual, Robert Klamp, an individual; James L. Buckner, an individual; Lisa Finch, an individual; Francis Baffuor, an individual; William C. Goodall, an individual; Donald Davidson, an individual and DOES 1 through 100, inclusive, as the defendants.
The case with No: 1:20 cv 07198, Birim is demanding jury trial and has pressed 20 charges against the defendants.
The charges include Federal Civil RICO (18 U.S C. § 1962) Money Laundering, Wire and Mail Fraud, Conspiracy to Violate Federal Civil RICO (18 U.S.C. § 1962(d)), Breach of Contract, Fraud – Promissory Fraud, Fraud – Intentional Misrepresentation, Fraud – Negligent Misrepresentation and Fraud – Concealment
The rest as filed include Negligence, Conversion, Interference with Contractual Relations, Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage, and Breach of Contract.
The lawyers for Birim directed DAILY GUIDE to the Chicago Court website where the entire document filed for the case were found.
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