By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE) – Nigeria’s Investments and Securities Tribunal (IST) said it’s ready to deliver judgment on cases brought before it within a time limit of 90 days.

Dr. Nnenna Orji, Chairman of the IST said this at the Fourth Quarter Capital Market Committee (CMC) meeting held Wednesday in Lagos Nigeria.

Dr. Orji said that the 90 days time limit to dispense Justice starts from the day of substantive hearing by the Tribunal.

“For IST, when we talk about 90 days, we mean 90 days from the day of the substantive hearing” she said.

According to her, there is the Pre-Hearing period which might take the Tribunal awhile.

She affirmed that the Pre-Hearing Period is a time that parties involved in the cases tender documents and bring in Preliminary Objections.

“We have Pre-Hearing which might take us a while because of the documents, Preliminary Objections that parties might bring in. We look at the documents, we admit what we think it’s necessary; because it’s a world class, our evidence law is exceeded in the sense that documents are carefully examined, it’s after this that the actual substantive case starts, so the 90 days starts from the substantive case hearing” Dr. Orji said.

The Tribunal is an independent specialised judicial body established under Section 224 of the Investments and Securities Act (ISA) of 1999 (now Section 274 of ISA 2007) to interpret and adjudicate on all Capital Market, Investments and Pensions’ matters.
Section 274 of ISA 2007 states that:

The IST is vested with the onerous responsibility of interpreting the ISA and adjudicating on disputes and controversies in capital market transactions.

The concept of IST, though novel, is not peculiar to Nigeria. In the U.K., there is the Financial Services and Markets Tribunal (FSMT), and in India, the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), and in the Hong Kong amongst others.