The SABC still wants to have the business breakfasts deal it struck with the formerly Gupta-owned The New Age Media, declared null and void.
Image: File
THE long-running legal battle between the SABC and the formerly Gupta-owned The New Age (TNA) Media over lucrative business breakfasts flighted on primetime television on the public broadcaster appears to be far from over.
Four former TNA Media directors – Nazeem Howa, Varun Gupta, Atul Kumar Gupta and Gary Naidoo – have been joined in the legal wrangle with the SABC in which it seeks to review and set aside the business breakfast deal.
TNA Media, which is now in liquidation, owned the newspaper while Infinity Media owned the now-defunct 24-hour TV news channel, ANN7, before they were sold to uMkhonto weSizwe MP and former senior public servant Mzwanele Manyi’s company Lodidox in August 2017.
The SABC only took steps against TNA Media in June 2017 after informing the company it was terminating the contract, which the Gupta firm accepted.
However, TNA Media later demanded R144 million in damages from the SABC and the matter was referred for arbitration in accordance with the contract.
In response, the SABC launched an urgent application to interdict and stop the arbitration pending the outcome of its bid to declare the agreement entered with TNA Media null and void ab initio (from the beginning).
On Tuesday, Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg Judge Motsamai Makume ruled in favour of the SABC in its bid to join the directors in its review application.
The public broadcaster also wanted to be allowed to serve the TNA Media directors papers through an English newspaper circulating throughout the country, electronic media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, lnstagram and/or similar platforms, alternatively, by means of edictal citation (to serve papers outside the borders of South Africa).
Additionally, the SABC wanted the court to declare that TNA Media shall be deemed not to be a juristic person but a venture of its directors personally in terms of the Companies Act.
It also sought a further declaration that, in the event of TNA Media being ordered to repay any moneys to the public broadcaster in the review application the director, upon their joinder be declared to be jointly and severally liable to the troubled entity for the repayment of such monies.
However, the SABC later abandoned its attempt to have the directors personally liable in the event of its success in the review application.
The TNA Media directors denied any direct and substantial interest in the outcome of the SABC’s review application; that the court had no jurisdiction over Varun Gupta and his uncle Atul; that the claim against them had prescribed and that there was no cause of action pleaded against them.
Judge Makume said the TNA Media directors have conceded that all processes in the matter be served on their South African attorneys and as a result unilaterally submitted themselves to the court’s jurisdiction.
“The court further held that a judgment given by a court against a peregrinus (person not residing or domiciled within the court’s jurisdiction) who has submitted to its jurisdiction will be internationally enforceable and will be recognised by the court of the judgment debtor's domicile (place/country of residence),” states the judgment.
The judge added that it can never be correct that the claim against the directors has become prescribed.
In the opposing affidavit filed by Naidoo, on behalf of all the directors, he told the court that the SABC’s cause of action, if any, arose in June 2018, which is the date on which, according to them, the public broadcaster became aware of the purported facts leading to the claim and as a result that claim prescribed in June 2021.
Judge Makume said the TNA Media directors wanted to turn a blind eye to the report and findings of the State Capture Commission, as well as those of the Special Investigating Unit, which clearly indicate that they were complicit in maleficence, fraud and/or corruption that occurred in the negotiations and conclusion of the agreements between TNA Media and the SABC.