Cattle ponzi victim loses court appeal

KOMANI businessman Dave Osborne, who lost millions of rands to a ponzi-type cattle scheme run by once-prominent Komga farmer Shaun Cockin – has failed in his court appeal bid to sequestrate Cockin’s family trust.

Cockin committed suicide in 2015 after being outed for running the scheme, in which a number of farmers had invested and lost millions of rands worth of cattle.

Cockin ran a grazing scheme in terms of which he allowed other farmers to graze millions of rands worth of cattle on large farms in the Cathcart and Komga districts. In return they were supposed to then split the cattle’s progeny equally between cattle owner and Cockin.

But Cockin quietly sold them off and pocketed the proceeds.

Osborne, who had 1 800 head of his cattle grazing on Cockin’s various farms in line with their grazing and progeny-split agreement, began asking tough questions of Cockin in 2015 when he noticed the majority of his cattle were absent. Tragically, a few days later, Cockin committed suicide.

Some R1-million worth of Osborn’s cattle had vanished into thin air.

Osborne resorted to court to sequestrate the Cockin Trust, on the basis that it was no more than Cockin’s alter ego and that he had a claim against it in respect of the theft of 1 501 head of cattle with an estimated value of R11-million.

Although the Grahamstown High Court provisionally sequestrated the trust in 2016, this was discharged on the return day, with the court finding that Osborne did not have a claim against the Cockin Trust.

Judge Sytze Alkema ruled the claim was not liquidated and there was no debt owed by the trust itself. Osborne appealed the decision in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). SCA Judge Carol Lewis said the central issues in the appeal were whether the Cockin Trust should be regarded as Osborne’s debtor – given that the underlying claim was actually against the deceased estate – and whether the claim for the value of cattle was liquidated.

Investigations by an accountant had found that neither Cockin’s son Mark, nor his wife, Marioth – both trustees of the trust – had taken any part in Cockin’s cattle dealing business. The nail in the coffin appeared to be that the books of account showed no transaction between the Cockin Trust and Osborne.

The accountant concluded that the Cockin Trust was not insolvent, that the sales of assets were concluded in arms-length transactions, and that the trust had not entered into any transaction that amounted to acts of insolvency.

Lewis dismissed Osborne’s appeal. She said Osborne had failed to establish that the trust was his debtor or that it was insolvent or committed any act of insolvency.

She said the proper procedure for him to follow would rather have been to make a claim against the trustees of the insolvent deceased estate, followed by an inquiry in terms of the Insolvency Act.

“Proper investigation might establish which of his assets, if any, were on trust property, and whether the trustees of the Cockin Trust were liable to return any cattle or pay damages.”