Supreme Court upholds RTC ruling on sale of Bankard Inc

The Supreme Court (SC) has affirmed a decision by the Makati City Regional Trial Court on the partial award rendered by the International Chamber of Commerce International Court of Arbitration (ICC-ICA) in favor of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. Capital Corp. (RCBC) over its dispute with Equitable PCI Bank (EPCIB) over the latter’s alleged overpriced sale of Bankard Inc.

In its 44-page decision penned by Associate Justice Presibitero Velasco Jr., the Court’s Second Division dismissed the petition for review filed by the officials of EPCIB (now owned by Banco de Oro), led by its chairman of the board George Go and president Oscar Lopez-Dee seeking the reversal of the Jan. 8, 2008 order of the Makati City RTC.

In its order, the Makati RTC affirmed the ICC-ICA’s partial award issued on Sept. 27, 007 in favor of RCBC after it found that EPCIB had violated the provisions of the Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) it had entered into with RCBC for the purchase of its Bankard, representing 226,460,000 shares, for the price of P1,78 billion.

The Court ruled that the lower court and the ICC-ICA did not commit grave abuse of discretion to warrant the reversal of the decision.

The Court also junked EPCIB’s claim that RCBC’s complaint was time-barred, that it was denied due process, and that the latter is estopped from questioning the financial condition of Bankard since it already knew the records of its accounts before it paid the balance of the purchase price.

“In the present case, petitioners, in a bid to establish that the arbitral award was issued in manifest disregard of the law, alleged that the partial award violated the principles of prescription, due process, and estoppel. A review of petitioners’ arguments would, however, show that their arguments are bereft of merit. Thus, the partial award dated Sept. 27, 2007 cannot be vacated,” the SC ruled.