From Ducor Petroleum Escrow Account At Afriland Bank:

Routine Judicial Review of Escrow Account has triggered a major Judicial Integrity Probe; as documents Show withdrawal slips carried Chief Judge’s personal details, not court’s official seal.

A routine case-management review by a specially- assigned Commercial Court judge has unearthed what court sources have described as one of the most serious escrow irregularities in the history of Liberia’s Commercial Court — alleged unauthorized withdrawals totaling US$105,000 from a court-controlled fiduciary account at Afriland Bank Liberia Limited.

The discovery was made not by auditors or bank compliance officers, but by His Honor U-Jay W.H.S. Bright, Special Judge of the Commercial Court, assigned to preside over the decade-long litigation of Monrovia Oil Trading Corporation (MOTC) v. Ducor Petroleum Inc.

According to judicial documents, bank correspondence, and multiple Commercial Court sources who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, it was Judge Bright’s independent order compelling full financial disclosure that produced the paper trail now before judicial authorities.

All persons named in this report are presumed innocent until proven otherwise through due process of law.

The underlying dispute dates to 2013. MOTC, a company owned by Belgian nationals Charles Carron and Krisman Leemans, filed a Petition for Accounting against Mr. Amos P. K. Brosius Sr., then General Manager of Ducor Petroleum Inc.

Pursuant to an order dated July 22, 2013, then Chief Judge Eva Mappy-Morgan placed Ducor Petroleum’s operating account at the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment (LBDI), Account No. 0221215153401, under the management and protection of the Commercial Court.

 The account was frozen pending a forensic audit and final accounting.

Court filings reviewed by this paper have alleged that more than US$3.4 million was subsequently withdrawn from that LBDI escrow account without the knowledge or consent of all parties to the escrow, in violation of the express terms of the escrow arrangement.

In a landmark ruling on September 18, 2026, Special Judge Bright, after a forensic review of financial records and bank statements, held MOTC liable for US$3,244,100.78.

The court found that MOTC, acting on a letter from its counsel, Heritage Partners and Associates Inc., instructed LBDI to release the funds, depleting the judicially controlled account.

 The withdrawal was declared unauthorized, null and void, and restitution was ordered to Mr. Brosius, whom the court recognized as the legitimate General Manager and owner of Ducor Petroleum.

MOTC, for its part, maintains it did not act unilaterally.

The company contends it applied to the Commercial Court and received judicial authorization in 2013 for that LBDI withdrawal — an authorization that, according to the docket, was granted ex parte by then Chief Judge Mappy-Morgan without notice to the opposing party. That authorization is now subject to appellate review.

Separate from the LBDI account, a second escrow was created at Afriland First Bank Liberia Ltd.

Under agreement by the parties and by court order, the sum of US$212,704.30— representing the combined value of seven checks seized in the litigation — was escrowed at Afriland Bank to prevent unilateral use by MOTC.

The funds were placed under the direct trusteeship of the Commercial Court by order of Chief Judge Mappy-Morgan.

It is this Afriland escrow that is at the center of the new controversy.

Court records indicate that upon assuming the case file, Special Judge Bright observed accounting gaps between the deposited balance and bank statements.

Exercising his case-management authority under Chapter 3 of the Commercial Court Act, he issued a formal judicial communication to Afriland Bank Liberia Limited compelling production of all deposit slips, withdrawal slips, and periodic statements relating to the Ducor Petroleum Inc. escrow account.

It was that disclosure — released pursuant to Judge Bright’s specific authorization — that allegedly exposed the anomalies.

According to documents in the possession of this paper, the bank’s response revealed two withdrawals from the court-controlled account:

August 6, 2015 — US$32,000

October 22, 2015 — US$73,000.

Total: US$105,000

Procedural Anomalies: Personal Details, No Official Seal

Under Liberia’s Commercial Court Act, the Revised Civil Procedure Law, and the Judiciary’s Financial Management Regulations, a court-ordered escrow account is a fiduciary trust account. The court is not the owner of the funds; it acts solely as trustee.

.Crucially, copies of the two Afriland withdrawal slips reviewed by this paper do not bear the official stamp of the Commercial Court’s Accounts Section or the standard notation “By Order of the Court” required for all fiduciary disbursements.

Instead, both slips allegedly bear the full personal details of Chief Judge Eva Mappy-Morgan, including her name and personal telephone contact, sources familiar with the documents said.

The slips were reportedly presented and cashed not by a court accountant, but by the acting Sheriff of the Commercial Court, identified as Nathaniel Gildersleeves.

Legal analysts consulted by this paper described this as a profound breach of escrow chain-of-custody protocol.

 “The appearance of a sitting Chief Judge’s personal identifiers on a fiduciary withdrawal instrument, in place of the court’s institutional seal, converts a judicial trust transaction into a personal one,” said one senior commercial lawyer.

 “That is precisely what the escrow rules are designed to prevent.”

It was this procedural anomaly that sources say prompted Judge Bright to flag the transactions as irregular and outside normal escrow procedure.

Judge Bright has not made a public statement, consistent with Canon III of the Code of Judicial Conduct, which bars judges from public comment on matters that may become subject to investigation by the Judicial Inquiry Commission (JIC) and the Honorable Supreme Court of Liberia.

The matter is further complicated by contradictory correspondence.

According to documents, Chief Judge Mappy-Morgan reportedly wrote to Mr. Hamadou O. Bayo, President/CEO of Afriland Bank, in two letters dated August 6, 2013 and October 13, 2015, in an apparent attempt to address the transactions.

In those letters, she is reported to have stated that the bank’s management should permit Mr. Nathaniel Gildersleeves, Acting Sheriff, to “take delivery of the said amount and have same brought to the court.”

The letters create a direct legal contradiction that now sits at the heart of any future JIC probe: the official correspondence claims the funds were to be taken by the Sheriff and brought to the Court as an institution, while the financial instruments themselves — the withdrawal slips — allegedly carry the Chief Judge’s personal identifiers, raising unresolved questions about compliance with escrow procedure and the actual chain of custody and final destination of the funds.

When contacted for this report, Afriland Bank declined to comment on client transactions, citing banker-customer confidentiality, but confirmed that it honors lawful court orders for disclosure.

If substantiated by the JIC, the alleged withdrawals strike at three pillars of Liberia’s commercial justice system.

 The Commercial Court was created in 2010 precisely to assure investors that commercial disputes and escrowed funds would be insulated from personal interference. Any deviation from Accounts Section procedure undermines that foundational promise.