Fight over embattled Gupta mine returns to high court

THE battle over Gupta-owned mining company Shiva Uranium is heading back to court after two business rescue practitioners lost their Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, bid to be recognised.

Mahomed Tayob and Eugene Januarie have asked acting Judge Mokhine Mosopa to grant them leave to appeal against his judgment in December.

At the time, he dismissed the business rescuers’ application to interdict the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) from implementing the Companies Tribunal’s decision not to recognise them.

Tayob and Januarie said the high court erred in holding that it was necessary for the second business rescue practitioner, Chris Monyela, to give his approval of the appointment made by Shiva Uranium’s board.

They argued that the correct interpretation of the law required that on the question of the appointment of a business rescue practitioner in the wake of the resignation of a duly appointed business rescue practitioner, the board alone was competent to make the appointment.

It did not require the approval of any remaining business rescue practitioner (incompetent or competent).

The court erred in approving the appointment of the third respondent (Juanito Damons) as a business rescue practitioner to the first respondent (Shiva Uranium) under circumstances where the first respondent mine, acting through its directors, had not made the appointment of the third respondent, said Tayob and Januarie.

Tayob and Januarie had wanted the high court to review and set aside the tribunal’s November decision and declare them and Monyela the duly and lawfully-appointed business rescuers.

But Judge Mosopa found Monyela’s appointment was not unlawful and he was competent to remain the mine’s business rescuer.

“However, in due regard of the fact that the first respondent (Shiva Uranium) is a large company, the company or the creditors who appointed the practitioner who resigned must take all the necessary steps to ensure that a senior practitioner(s) is appointed to fill the vacant post left by Cloete Murray,” stated the judge.

Murray resigned in September and Shiva Uranium chief executive George van der Merwe, one of the two directors, appointed Tayob and Januarie.

The CIPC rejected Damons’s appointment due to potential conflict of interest, but Monyela successfully requested the tribunal to recognise him and for Tayob and Januarie’s removal. |