JEDDAH, 6 September 2005 — The circuit court in Jeddah yesterday adjourned for another two weeks a scheduled hearing to decide the fate of about 1,000 former employees of Al-Rajhi Commercial Foreign Exchange who lost their jobs after the institution’s merger with the newly formed Bank Albilad.
A huge number of the plaintiffs attended the hearing along with their attorneys from Abu Rashed Law Office. There were also representatives from both Albilad and Al-Rajhi banks.
According to a decision made at a previous hearing, Albilad should have submitted a brief to the court in response to an earlier representation from the plaintiffs’ lawyer.
The Albilad attorney, however, told the court that he had not prepared the brief and requested the hearing be postponed. His reason was that Albilad wanted a chance to present a list of the plaintiffs to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) in order to check their records. The court agreed to the postponement.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Khaled Abu Rashed, said, “This is clearly an attempt to stall by Albilad. It’s a weak argument; it’s unbelievable to think that the plaintiffs would file a suit pretending to be employees of Al-Rajhi. The case has been pending for five months.”
The court made it plain to Albilad’s representatives that even if they fail to respond to the plaintiffs’ claims at the next hearing in two weeks, the court will issue a final decision.
The case began five months ago when a Cabinet decision was made approving the merger of all foreign exchange agencies in the Kingdom with Bank Albilad.
The bank, however, refused to hire the Al-Rajhi employees despite Article 89 of the Labor Law which clearly states, “The contract of the employees of a certain institution shall remain in force even after cases of merging.”
Albilad representatives failed to attend the first court hearing, claiming that they had not received the summons. At the second hearing, they asked the court to give them time to respond to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The Al-Rajhi recently sent a letter to the Council of Ministers complaining that Albilad failed to honor its commitments to the employees under the merger agreement.
In early July, hundreds of the former Al-Rajhi employees gathered in front of the SAMA office in Jeddah demanding that the central bank intervene to secure their jobs at Bank Albilad and ensure payment of their financial entitlements amounting to SR20 million.
SAMA last month threatened tough action against Albilad if it fails to solve the problem of the employees. It said Albilad was delaying the appointment of the Al-Rajhi employees on the pretext that the latter did not close down all its branches.
