The National Commercial Bank (NCB) yesterday lost another round of its legal battle to close the accounts of embattled investment club Olint Corporation Limited.

The Court of Appeal had two weeks ago blocked NCB from closing Olint's three accounts, which prompted the bank to file an application with the appellate court seeking leave to appeal the decision with the United Kingdom-based Privy Council.

But yesterday when the application came up for hearing, NCB's request to appeal to the Privy Council was refused.
The appellate court said it saw the bank's request to appeal the decision as trying to circumvent an order it made two weeks ago for the matter between Olint and NCB to be tried at an early date, and that it would not facilitate the bank to this end.

However, an undaunted Dave Garcia, NCB's general counsel, said the bank would be petitioning the Privy Council directly.

The bank had sought to close the accounts because of Olint's failure to provide its audited financial statement, coupled with the fact that the entity was not regulated by the Financial Services Commission, which puts the bank at risk of sanction.

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