Ecobank Ghana PLC has issued a public statement seeking to reassure customers and the broader market that its financial position remains intact, following the conclusion of one of the longest and most consequential commercial legal disputes in Ghana’s history.
In a statement released on Friday, May 16, 2026, the bank said:“Ecobank Ghana PLC is aware of the recent court ruling in respect of claims on the Bank. As a responsible financial institution, Ecobank Ghana PLC respects the judicial process and will continue to uphold the rule of law. We wish to reassure our customers that the Bank’s financial position remains strong and resilient and our services continue without disruption.”
The statement was issued eight days after a five-member Supreme Court panel unanimously dismissed the bank’s final application in its long-running dispute with Ghanaian investor, Daniel Ofori; a case that originated from a single share transaction on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) in May 2008 and spent the better part of two decades working through Ghana’s court system.
Share sale to legal marathon
The dispute began when Ofori sold 14,130,000 CalBank shares through Databank Brokerage on May 27, 2008, at GH¢1.05 per share — a transaction valued at GH¢13,762,240 (US$1.22 million) in total. The shares were duly transferred into the buyer’s name and registered.
On May 30, Mr. Ofori attended Ecobank to collect payment and instructed the bank to issue banker’s drafts totalling GH¢7.6 million (US$674,000) and to place GH¢6,162,240 (US$546,300) in a fixed deposit account. He left the bank with the drafts in hand.
What Mr. Ofori did not know was that approximately ninety minutes before his arrival, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) had written to the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) requesting a hold on the transaction over suspected money laundering concerns. The suspension directive did not reach Databank until after 5:00pm that evening, several hours after payment had already been made.
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By Monday morning, CalBank’s share price had fallen from GH¢1.05 to GH¢0.65, a decline of nearly 38 percent. Ecobank stopped all banker’s drafts. The buyer, William Oppong-Bio, formally withdrew from the transaction on June 11. Two days later, the BoG cleared the transaction as legitimate, but Mr. Oppong-Bio had already walked away and Ecobank refused to release Mr. Ofori’s funds.
Mr. Ofori sued. He lost at the High Court in 2011 and at the Court of Appeal in 2013. In July 2018, the Supreme Court overturned both decisions, ruling that the trade had legally settled before the central bank’s intervention, that ownership of the shares had transferred when Mr. Oppong-Bio’s name was entered in CalBank’s register, and that Ecobank had wrongfully frozen funds over which a banker-customer relationship had already been established.
The compound interest battle
Winning the 2018 judgment did not end the dispute. What followed was a separate legal war over the precise quantum of the liability, specifically whether the agreed 30 percent interest rate applied as simple or compound interest over the decade the money had been withheld.
The difference was enormous. Ecobank’s own calculation on a simple interest basis produced GH¢30.9 million (US$2.74 million). An independent calculation by the Judicial Service’s Deputy Director of Finance, applying compound interest, arrived at GH¢132 million (US$11.7 million). The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that compound interest applied; reasoning that a fixed deposit arrangement with no maturity date would, by commercial logic, roll over accumulated principal and interest together at each cycle, and set the final judgment figure at GH¢96,304,972 (US$8.54 million).
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The bank paid approximately GH¢30.9 million (US$2.74 million) — the portion it did not contest — while the compound interest question continued through the courts. The residual liability stood at approximately GH¢65.4 million (US$5.8 million) at the time of judgment crystallisation in 2020. Post-judgment simple interest at 13.34 percent has continued accruing on the outstanding balance since July 2018, adding an estimated GH¢8–9 million (US$710,000–US$798,000) per year. The total exposure Ecobank now faces is likely to be materially in excess of GH¢100 million (US$8.87 million).
The fraud allegations
Ecobank also fought back on more dramatic grounds. In 2021, the bank invoked the Supreme Court’s inherent jurisdiction — a residual power reserved for exceptional circumstances, and alleged that Ofori had received GH¢5.7 million (US$505,500) in dividends and bonus shares from CalBank between 2010 and 2019 while simultaneously arguing in court that he had sold those same shares.
The bank also produced a CID Forensic Science Laboratory report claiming signs of tampering in the investment agreement document that underpinned the compound interest ruling. A series of majority decisions, 4-1 and 4-3, rejected both allegations, with the court observing in 2023 that the case had been kept “on life support” for too long after the original 2018 judgment.
The financial backdrop
Ecobank Ghana’s reassurance of financial resilience is not without foundation. The bank’s audited results for the year ended December 31, 2025, show a net profit of GH¢1.82 billion (US$161.4 million), up 7.2 percent from GH¢1.70 billion (US$150.7 million) in 2024, on total revenue of GH¢4.91 billion (US$435.3 million).
Total assets stood at GH¢47.33 billion (US$4.20 billion). The capital adequacy ratio strengthened to 21.48 percent from 17.18 percent the prior year, well above the regulatory minimum, and the non-performing loan ratio improved to 17.92 percent from 21.14 percent. Loans and advances to customers grew to GH¢13.15 billion (US$1.17 billion) from GH¢10.60 billion (US$940.1 million). KPMG Ghana issued an unmodified audit opinion on the accounts.
Against that balance sheet, a liability of even GH¢120–140 million (US$10.6 million–US$12.4 million) is manageable in absolute terms. Investors and market analysts, however, continue to ask how and whether this exposure has been recognised in successive audited accounts, and when and how settlement of the outstanding judgment will be effected.
Ecobank Ghana is a subsidiary of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, which holds a 68.93 percent controlling stake in the bank. It remains one of Ghana’s largest commercial banks by assets and reach.
Its share price performance on the GSE has been exceptional over the medium and longer term, even as the stock shows marginal short-term softness. While the counter edged down 0.1 percent over the past four weeks, it has surged 68.6 percent over three months, 216 percent over six months, and 95.4 percent year-to-date. Over the past twelve months, the stock has returned 628 percent, placing it among the highest performers on the exchange during a period of broad market recovery.
