A High Court in Accra has ruled in favour of a fuel station dealer at Madina near Accra in a long-standing contractual dispute with TotalEnergies Marketing PLC, ordering the oil marketing company to account for rent received from CalBank for an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) installed on the dealer’s land.
The court has further ordered TotalEnergies to issue a release letter to the defendant within 30 days, starting from the day the judgement was delivered to enable the businessman to move on with his business.
The case, presided over by Justice Patrick Baayeh, was filed by TotalEnergies in August 2023 against Mr. Thomas Kofi Classpeter, operator of the Powerland Total Energies Service Station at Madina, seeking declarations that a 2014 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two parties remained valid and binding for 15 years.
The company also sought an order compelling Mr. Classpeter to yield up the service station and pay damages for alleged breach of contract.
Mr. Classpeter, however, counterclaimed, arguing that the MOU was only intended as a temporary arrangement for six months, after which a formal agreement was to be signed.
He insisted that since no such agreement was executed, the plaintiff could not rely on the MOU to bind him for 15 years.
He further accused TotalEnergies of refusing to issue him a release letter, as required by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), to enable him to sever ties and operate independently.
In his judgment, Justice Baayeh held that the MOU was indeed temporary and ceased to have legal effect after six months.
He found that the company could not unilaterally extend its terms simply because the parties continued to operate under the arrangement for nine years without signing a formal contract.
On the matter of the CalBank ATM, the judge ruled that TotalEnergies had no right to lease part of the defendant’s land without his consent and to withhold details of the rental arrangement.
The court, therefore, ordered the company to account for all rent payments received from CalBank since installation and pay 50 percent of the total proceeds to Mr Classpeter within 60 days of filing the accounts in court.
However, the court dismissed Mr Classpeter’s claims for damages over the refusal to issue a release letter, describing them as unproven.
Justice Baayeh awarded costs of GH¢50,000 against TotalEnergies in favour of the defendant.
