Due to the delay in charging one of the accused, yesterday’s arraignment of Tigran Gambaryan and other officials of Binance Holdings Limited was postponed.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was unable to serve one of the defendants with the charge, which caused the arraignment to be postponed.
Only Gambaryan had legal representation when the defendants’ plea was called before Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Neither the corporation nor Anjarwalla, who just escaped from lawful custody, had legal representation prior to the case’s hearing yesterday.
Chukwuka Ikwuazo (SAN), Gambaryan’s attorney, however, informed the court that since his client had not received the charge, the arraignment could not go on.
While acknowledging that the agency had not yet served Gambaryan with the accusation, FIRS attorney Moses Ideho said that all attempts to do so had failed since the defendant could not be reached at the EFCC’s detention center.
The judge then ordered that Gambaryan be served with the charge in the dock after Ideho begged the court to do so in open court.
As a result, the attorney requested a stand-down or an adjournment so that Gambaryan could speak with his attorney.
Ikwuazo did not protest when the case was postponed until April 19 so that he could present his case orally.
The three defendants will each be arraigned before Justice Nwite on four counts in the charge designated FHC/ABJ/CR/115/2024.
The defendants were accused of committing the offense on or around February 1 in the charge that the FIRS filed on March 22.
Count one claimed that they neglected to register with the FIRS in order to pay all applicable taxes that the service was responsible for handling while they were carrying out and providing services to users on its platform, known as Binance.
According to Sections 8 and 29 of the VAT Act of 1993 (as amended), Section 40 of the FIRS Establishment Act, 2007 (as amended), and Section 94 of the Companies Income Tax Act (as amended), respectively, the offenses are criminal.
The trial was postponed until April 8 and April 19, 2024.
