Economy

Tobinco to resume suit against FDA

Carbonatix Pre-Player Loader

Audio By Carbonatix

Tobinco Pharmaceutical Company has indicated its intention to resume the suit it instituted against the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), accusing the latter of disrespecting the agreed out-of-court settlement.

The FDA in early October descended on Tobinco for allegedly importing fake drugs from India into the country.

Tobinco, which felt the FDA was unfairly branding its imported drugs as fake went to court to stop the FDA from declaring that about 100 drugs imported by the company from India were fake. The action was also to stop the regulator from destroying the drugs until the final determination of the suit.

However, upon the advice of the court, the two parties agreed an out-of-court settlement late last month.

 Lawyer for Tobinco, Mr. Frederick Asamoah, had explained that although the company would not discontinue with the case entirely, it was exploring avenues for an amicable settlement of the matter.

Mr. Asamoah on Thursday told Joy News,  that since then, Tobinco has made efforts to meet and resolve the impasse but FDA has failed to sit with them.

He lamented that personnel of the company would at times spend the whole day at the Authority hoping to be granted audience, but while the company’s officials were waiting “FDA went behind them to lock offices” of Tobinco.

Mr. Asamoah claimed, for instance that FDA locked Tobinco’s warehouses at Alajo and other places.

The latest one was the attempt by a combined team of FDA and Economic Crime and Organised Office to close a ‘sister company’ of Tobinco, Thursday evening, but workers there resisted them because they did not have a search warrant.

The company’s lawyer felt the FDA is “only taking advantage” of the discontinuance of suit to do things against the corporate image of the company as well as its operations.

He said that the FDA is “not on the route to settlement”, otherwise it would have hold on with its onslaught on Tobinco, “but the way they are doing these things behind us means they are not ready for settlement; the only remedy left to us is to go back to court”.

He further explained that with the posture of FDA, “it’s not likely we can sit to resolve the matter...we can get remedy in court”.

Mr. Asamoah said Tobinco would challenge the withholding of their containers at the Tema Port and other actions taken by the FDA, in court, as he expressed confidence that “judgement debt will come in”.

DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
Tags:  
DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.