If at first you don’t succeed, appeal, appeal, appeal again -- for 13 years

1999: Pratt owns 20% of Anne Pratt and Nyasulu. A Ms Nyasulu owns 10%. Monument Trust Company — endorsed by the Reserve Bank as non-South African — owns 70%.

2000: Fast Track Trust (Isle of Man), of which Pratt is “beneficiary or perhaps controller”, buys the 70% of Anne Pratt and Nyasulu’s shares held by Monument for R700. Nyasulu sells her 10% to Pratt, and the company name changes to Anne Pratt & Associates.

2001: FirstRand lends Pratt R25-million.

2002: Pratt becomes the sole member of Classy Living CC and either lends it or makes available to it the R25-million. Classy Living uses the money to buy 70% of Anne Pratt & Associates from Fast Track (which has retained Monument’s non-resident status). The R25-million is transferred to a Fast Track bank account in Jersey.

September 2003: Pratt applies to the High Court in Pretoria for an order declaring the loan transaction null and void because the R25-million had been exported in contravention of an exchange-control regulation. FirstRand files a counterclaim for enforcement of the loan agreement, or for the R25-million plus interest based on unjustified enrichment. Pratt loses her case.

September 2008: Pratt loses again in the Supreme Court of Appeal.

July 2010: Pratt is allowed by the High Court in Pretoria to amend her plea to the counterclaim to allege that FirstRand devised and implemented the transaction with the fraudulent intention of circumventing the exchange-control regulation and that the transaction was void. She loses the case again.

September 2014: Pratt loses again in the appeal court.

November 2015: Pratt’s bid to try another variant of the fraud defence is refused by the court, as is her application for leave to appeal against the refusal.

December 3 2015: The court rules that Pratt must pay FirstRand R19.6-million, interest reckoned from 2007 and costs. She applies for leave to appeal and later for a postponement of this application.

March 30 2016: The court refuses both applications.

April 13 2016: Pratt applies to the High Court in Pretoria for an interdict precluding FirstRand from executing the judgment, pending the outcome of an action yet to be instituted to set it aside — and all the judgments that preceded it. Pratt asserts that FirstRand obtained the judgments by fraud.

June 30 2016: The application is dismissed and Pratt is again told to pay First Rand’s costs.