Daniel Ofori vs. Ecobank Ghana Limited and 2 Others Revisited

Why the Supreme Court Snubbed Bank of Ghana's Advice and used Ecobank’s Own "Monthly Compounding" Practice in GH¢6.16m Interest Dispute

For nearly two decades, an investment dispute between businessman Daniel Ofori and Ecobank Ghana Limited has wound its way through Ghana's courts, reduced in its final stretch to a single, deceptively technical question: when interest compounds on a long-running investment, should it compound monthly or annually? In a ruling delivered on 6th May 2026, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court, presided over by Tanko Amadu JSC, answered that question and in doing so, delivered a pointed lesson on why even the Central Bank's word is not the last word in court.

The public interest in this case requires us to present a write up based on the ruling of the Supreme Court in Daniel Ofori vs. Ecobank Ghana Limited, Securities and Exchange Commission and Ghana Stock Exchange 

Dispute Over Interest Computation: 

At the heart of the matter is a call/fixed deposit investment of Gh¢6,162,240.00 made by Ofori with Ecobank on 2nd June 2008, on which the parties had agreed an interest rate of 30% per annum. By the time judgment was entered in Ofori's favour on 25th July 2018, the two sides could not agree on how that decade-long interest should have been compounded a disagreement that would go on to swing the final figure by tens of millions of cedis.

Ofori's case was that the interest should compound monthly, which by his calculation produced a principal-and-interest figure of GHC142,623,613.25 before post-judgment interest of 13.34% was added, bringing the total to GHC151,018,312.85. Ecobank insisted the compounding should be annual, a method that produced a markedly lower GHC89,852,411.88, rising to GHC96,304,972.41 once post-judgment interest was applied a figure the bank openly admitted was owed.

That admission led the court, on 1st June 2021, to order Ecobank to pay the undisputed GHC96,304,972.41 immediately, while adjourning the balance the real battleground for later determination.

Along the way, the court also cleared up a side dispute over privilege: correspondence exchanged between the parties during a failed mediation (Exhibits DA8, DA9 and DA10) was ruled inadmissible under section 105 of the Evidence Act, 1975 (NRCD 323), the court finding that neither party had intended those settlement talks to be used against it should the matter return to litigation.

Enter the Bank of Ghana

With neither statute nor a clear contractual term settling how the interest should be compounded, the court took the unusual step, on 29th July 2021, of inviting the Bank of Ghana itself to weigh in. The instruction was direct: since compounding "daily, weekly and annually" was "not statutory," the Central Bank should offer its expert opinion.

Months later, in a letter dated 9th December 2021, the Bank of Ghana's Second Deputy Governor delivered its verdict, but it was a qualified one. The apex bank made clear it had "not prescribed any industry standard for the computation of interests on Call/Fixed deposits," and that compounding methodology was ordinarily "based on terms agreed between a bank and its customer." Since Ofori and Ecobank had no such agreement, the Bank of Ghana's fallback recommendation was that interest "be compounded annually, since the investment has travelled over a decade."

For Ecobank, this was vindication. The bank leaned heavily on the Central Bank's opinion, paying Ofori GHC96,304,972.41 in August 2025 and a further GHC45,358,009.26 in October 2025 — on the annual-compounding basis and even claimed it had overpaid Ofori by GHC4,695,998.41, for which it wanted a refund.

Why the Court Said No

Ofori's lawyers, however, mounted a different argument entirely not about what the Bank of Ghana said was fair, but about what Ecobank itself had always done. They pointed the court to Ecobank's own online Systematic Investment Plan calculator (Exhibits B and B1), which computed compound interest on a monthly basis, and to evidence that other industry players calculated interest the same way (Exhibits C to C3). Crucially, Ecobank never disputed that these exhibits reflected its own public representations, nor did it produce any evidence that Ofori's investment was somehow different from the products depicted in its own calculator.

That gap proved fatal to the Bank of Ghana's recommendation. The Supreme Court was unambiguous that an expert opinion, however authoritative its source does not bind a court. Reaching for its own precedent in Feneku vs. John Teye [2001-2002] SCGLR 985, the court restated the principle that "the judge need not accept any of the evidence offered. The judge was only to be assisted by such expert evidence to arrive at a conclusion of his own after examining the whole of the evidence before him." The Bank of Ghana's advice, in other words, was a guide not a verdict.

And on closer inspection, the court found the guide wanted. It held bluntly that "the BoG failed to demonstrate the equity or justness in the recommendation it proposed," noting that the mere passage of a decade was never shown to be a recognized banking practice or policy justifying annual compounding.

Weighed against that thin justification was Ecobank's own conduct, its own usage of trade, its own representations to the public, and its own product design, all pointing to monthly compounding. Invoking section 177(1)(b) of the Evidence Act, 1975 (NRCD 323), which permits a court to look beyond a written agreement to "a course of dealing or usage of trade" where the writing is silent, the court held that Ecobank could not turn around and disown a practice it had shown to the world. As the court put it, the bank was "estopped from seeking to treat the Respondent herein in a manner different from its normal usage of trade."

Balancing the two, the court concluded that the estoppel arising from Ecobank's own practice "substantially outweighs the recommendation of the BoG," and that it was "unable to accept the recommendation of the BoG as conclusive of the issue."

The Final Order

The ruling settled the matter decisively. The court held that Ofori "is entitled to monthly compounded interest on its principal investment sum of Gh¢6,162,240.00, calculated at a monthly compound interest rate of 30% from the date of investment being 2nd June 2008 till date of the judgment which is 25th July 2018 and thereafter the judgment debt shall attract simple interest at the rate of 13.34% till date of final payment."

In effect, Ecobank's own online calculator did more to decide the outcome of a multimillion-cedi dispute than the considered opinion of the nation's Central Bank a reminder, as the court's reasoning makes clear, that in Ghanaian law, what an institution tells the public it does can come back to bind it in court, however inconvenient that later proves.

The bench comprised Tanko Amadu, Adjei-Frimpong, S. Dzamefe, J. Bartels-Kodwo and H. Amaleboba JJSC. Ace Anan Ankomah, with Daad Akwesi and Ebo Dantse Benjamin, appeared for Ecobank; Tsatsu Tsikata, with Nana Boakye Mensah-Bonsu and Prince Noel Danquah, appeared for Daniel Ofori.

Based on the ruling of the Supreme Court in Daniel Ofori vs. Ecobank Ghana Limited, Securities and Exchange Commission and Ghana Stock Exchange, Civil Motion No. J8/97/2021, delivered 6th May 2026. (Click to read full ruling)