Settlement between former Tekkie Town executives, Star
Alida de Beer
The legal matter in which Steinhoff Speciality Fashion and Footwear sought an interdict against four former Tekkie Town executives who resigned in June, was settled in court on Tuesday 31 July.
Steinhoff had obtained a temporary court order from the Western Cape High Court on 5 July which interdicted Tekkie Town founder Braam van Huyssteen, the former CEO Bernard Mostert, and two former IT managers, Willem Wait (chief information officer) and Anton Roetz, from accessing the Tekkie Town information technology (IT) system and using any data, intellectual property or copies of Tekkie Town and Star e-mail records. The respondents agreed to these conditions on Tuesday, and undertook to destroy any data they might have of Star or Tekkie Town.
In the court papers was a sworn statement by Wait in which he said that Steinhoff had omitted and misrepresented facts that were relevant to the issues the court had to consider when issuing the order. One such fact was that the records Steinhoff had sought to be interdicted, contained the complete records required to conduct 18 non-Tekkie Town businesses with a value of over R2-billion.
Furthermore, Steinhoff created the impression that the respondents were able to sabotage the Tekkie Town IT system from one store, as "falsely asserted" by Werner de Bruin, one of the employees who had joined the mass exit from Tekkie Town, but later returned. De Bruin had assisted the exit group with making copies of information from the Tekkie Town IT system before they left. He had given a sworn statement on which the temporary court order was largely based.
Wait said Steinhoff misled the court with regard to the content of the copied information, of which about 35% belongs to the 18 non-Tekkie Town companies that were administrated from the head-office in George. The e-mail accounts of some of the executives contain thousands of e-mails relating to Tekkie Town and the nonTekkie Town businesses, which would be practically impossible to separate. Steinhoff did not inform the court of this, although De Bruin knew about it. Some of the e-mail accounts of Van Huyssteen, Mostert and Dawie van Niekerk (former Tekkie Town COO) also contain information relevant to the pending litigation between them and the Steinhoff Group.
According to Wait, Steinhoff has been in complete control of the IT system since 28 June and there is no danger that any former employee could damage the system in the manner alleged by Steinhoff. Wait said that he and Roetz handed over their usernames and passwords, which covered the company's whole IT domain. Louis Brand, an executive of Star, ordered in the same meeting where the handover took place, that the credentials be confirmed and changed. He said Steinhoff's submission that attempts to penetrate the system were of the respondents' doing was false and it was later established that it was a "standard attack" from the same source of attacks also reported in Romania and Indonesia at the time. An affidavit by Roshan Harneker, computer forensic expert, stated that it would be impossible to access Steinhoff or Tekkie Town's computer network from a retail shop.
Police charge
Mostert said, "We are questioning the motive for the application seeing that the interdict has been discharged and we are considering defamation charges against Star."
Mostert has filed a charge with the police after Tekkie Town employees allegedly entered his locked office, gaining access to hard copies of information belonging to the non-Tekkie Town entities which he says has nog been returned.
Star comments
Commenting on the outcome, Star CEO Leon Lourens said, "The outcome is a positive one for Tekkie Town and Star as it validates our original concerns and responses. The earlier interim interdict served as an immediate prevention of possible interference by the respondents, while the court order made on 31 July protects the business in the longer term. We are satisfied that we achieved our objectives to protect the business from those who seek to undermine our efforts. Star and Tekkie Town will continue to use the necessary legal process to protect the business and this includes the possibility of criminal charges."