Court of Appeal restores GN S&L licence

The Court of Appeal has unanimously restored the operating licence of GN Savings and Loans Company Limited, overturning both a High Court ruling and the Bank of Ghana’s (BoG) 2019 decision to revoke the institution’s licence. This has been described as a landmark legal victory for Groupe Nduom after nearly seven years of litigation.

The three-member appellate panel held that the revocation was unfair and unreasonable, and ordered that the receiver appointed to manage the institution return possession, control and management of its assets and operations to its shareholders.

The ruling marks the most significant legal development yet in a protracted dispute rooted in the 2017–2020 financial sector clean-up, which saw the licences of dozens of banks, savings and loans companies and microfinance institutions revoked on grounds of insolvency and regulatory non-compliance.

GN Bank, as the institution was widely known, had its universal banking licence downgraded to a savings and loans licence in January 2019 after failing to meet the BoG’s revised minimum capital requirement of GH¢400 million.

Just seven months later, in August 2019, the central bank revoked even that reclassified licence, citing a capital adequacy ratio of -61 percent, governance failures, and the undocumented transfer of over US$62 million in depositors’ funds to a related Groupe Nduom entity in the United States.

Groupe Nduom consistently disputed those findings, arguing that the institution had met all reclassification conditions set by the regulator, and that government indebtedness to affiliated contractors had artificially depressed its balance sheet position.

The High Court sided with the BoG in January 2024, prompting an appeal filed by Groupe Nduom the same month. On February 10, 2026, the Court of Appeal granted the BoG an extension to file written submissions, setting the stage for today’s ruling.

The BoG had not publicly responded to the judgment at the time of publication.

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