Nic may face civil claims

CONCOURT DISMISSES APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL. This is the end of the road for Georgiou on the defences raised against the claims – advocate.

Property magnate Nic Georgiou may face civil claims totalling more than R2 billion after the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) dismissed his application for leave to appeal a 2015 high court judgment.

This 2015 judgment ordered him to repay a single investor’s original capital investment but was also binding on 45 other investors with similar claims. Their collective claims exceed R30 million.

“This is the end of the road for Georgiou on the defences raised against the claims. It also opens the door for the thousands of [Highveld Syndications 21 and 22 schemes] investors to institute similar claims,” said advocate Louis Bolt, who represents the 46 investors.

In total, thousands of investors invested more than R2 billion in these two syndications.

In addition to the 46 investors, three other investors received default judgments against Georgiou in recent weeks, said Bolt. Their collective claim is nearly R8 million.

Georgiou has indicated he’ll challenge these judgments.

The ConCourt judgment only affects investments in the Highveld Syndications 21 and 22 schemes, as the investment contracts included specific buyback clauses.

According to these clauses, Georgiou, or his company Zephan, would repay the investments according to agreed terms five years after the investment date.

This guaranteed the investments and many investors based their investment decision on this clause. Georgiou reneged on this .

This case has been in the courts for nearly three years. After the 2015 high court judgment, Geor- giou was granted leave to appeal. In 2016, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed this appeal, and then Georgiou applied to the ConCourt for leave to appeal. This application was dismissed with costs. However, the court found that the buyback agreements were still in effect and ordered Georgiou to repay the investors.

Bolt confirmed he’s working on other cases to the value of more than R150 million. He is also in the process of instituting civil claims on behalf of investors in HS 19 and 20. These contracts don’t include a buyback agreement, but Bolt says claims will be instituted against the transfer attorney who released money from his trust account before properties were transferred.