Trillian will have to answer next year over R600m

Eskom’s legal battle to recover R600 million it alleges was irregularly paid to the Gupta-linked Trillian Capital Partners will only be argued in the High Court in Pretoria next year.

A full bench of the court, led by Judge Moroa Tsoka, yesterday allowed Trillian to file a further set of affidavits in the application, and postponed Eskom’s application until March next year, but granted a punitive costs order against Trillian for the delay.

Eskom initially sued both Trillian and global consultancy firm McKinsey for the repayment of almost R1.6 billion allegedly unlawfully paid to them as a result of an invalid deal involving corruption and fraud.

McKinsey paid back the R1 billion it received in July, following a settlement with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and Eskom, but Trillian vehemently opposed the application, claiming it was McKinsey’s local partner and sub-contractor, was never involved in any corruption and deserved to keep the full R600 million for the work they did.

Eskom maintained they never had any contract with Trillian, never owed them a cent and that no work was done for the money paid to them.

They said Trillian kept on submitting invoices and receiving payments even after McKinsey cancelled their partnership in March 2016.

The NPA earlier obtained a preservation order for the payments Eskom made to McKinsey and Trillian, alleging the payments were consistent with criminal activities including fraud, theft, corruption and money laundering and amounted to a deliberate and fraudulent circumvention of Eskom’s supply management process.