Laura Akunga’s bank threatens to sue media house
A local bank has threatened to institute legal proceedings against a media house
for publishing “false and erroneous” statements against one of its clients – city businesswomen Laura Akunga.
Family Bank is accusing the said media house – according to documents in our possession – in an article titled, “You owe me Millions businessman tells Miss I love you Hubby” of publishing factually incorrect information against Akunga.
A statement by Family Bank Limited Company Secretary Rebecca Mbithi that has been exclusively obtained by Nairobi News particularly takes exception with a section of the article that states;
“On or about January 2013, Akunga experienced financial difficulties. Family Bank had sought to recover a loan which she guaranteed someone who defaulted. Since she is known to me, I decided to lend her $ 50,000 (Sh 4.9 million) in cash because there wasn’t enough time to do a Bank Transfer. According to her she had been given 48 hours within which to clear the Sh 40 million loan she had guaranteed someone.”
CUSTOMER CONFIDENTIALITY
Mbithi has thus, responded in a statement to the media house that; “We wish to point out that the above statement is factually incorrect and that the Bank has not at any time sought to recover any debts against her indirectly or directly as a guarantor,”
The bank official adds: “In addition to causing considerable embarrassment to our customer and injuring her reputation, the false and erroneous allegations have portrayed Family Bank to our customer and the public as a Bank that does not respect confidentiality of its customers and that we may have a role to play in the article,”
Family Bank has ordered the media house to immediately pull down the article from all its online platforms and offer an unequivocal and public retraction and apology by the 10th of July 2015.
Akunga recently hit the headlines when she opted to spoil her boyfriend with a Sh 10 million car as a birthday gift, a move that dominated a larger part of the discussions on social media.
The publicity that Akunga subsequently enjoyed also set in motion speculations about how she acquired her riches.