On Monday, the media was awash with reports that the Ogun State High Court ordered Zenith Bank to pay N500,000 as damages for sending spam messages to a lady, Omotola Fathiat Quadri.
Quadri had last year, dragged the Tier 1 bank to the court for infringing on her fundamental rights to privacy as guaranteed under section 37 of the Nigerian constitution.
In the fundamental rights application, Quadri claimed that Zenith Bank, between February 16 to May 26, 2021, sent over 300 unsolicited messages to her email address despite not owning an account with the bank.
The applicant stated that she wrote the bank through her lawyers and also petitioned the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the National Information Technology Development Agency, about the infringement on her privacy by the bank but the respondent bank continued sending unsolicited messages to her.
She therefore sought for an order of the court restraining the bank from further sending her messages. Quadri also prayed the court to award N5,000,000 in her favour as general damages for infringing on her fundamental rights to privacy.
The bank in a counter-affidavit by its lawyer, Clarkson Adebayo, claimed that the applicant’s email address was provided by one Omotola Rashidat Quadri, a customer.
The lawyer claimed that the general promotional advertisement was still being sent to the applicant despite that the bank suspended sending email transaction alerts to her, because her email was still registered in the bank’s database.
Adebayo argued that the Bank cannot be held liable for invasion of privacy for acting in compliance with the email address supplied by its customer.
He urged the court not to grant the application, as granting it “will open the flood gate of litigations against the bank and other financial institutions as many customers would deliberately supply wrong information and thereafter proceed to sue the institution for infringement of their rights.”
In her ruling, Justice Sonia Akinbiyi agreed with the submission of the applicant that the bank infringed on her fundamental rights. The judge restrained the bank from further sending such unsolicited emails in any manner infringing the applicant’s fundamental rights.
“The admission to sending a plethora of messages and promotional messages even in the face of several letters and petitions against the respondent to stop same violates the fundamental rights of the applicant.
“The application succeeds in its prayers (I) and (2), this court declare that the unsolicited email violates the applicant’s privacy, the respondent is hereby restrained from further sending such unsolicited Emails in any manner infringing the applicant’s fundamental rights”, the Judge held and ordered the bank to pay N500,000 to the applicant.