Lennie The Liquidator Faces R500,000 Defamation Suit

After losing his cool when his fees were questioned

WHEN VETERAN CAPE town insolvency practitioner Eileen Fey ventured to sug-gest to attorney Leonard Katz of law firm ENS that his bill of R422,871.57 to defend a matter in the Wynberg Magistrates Court seemed “extremely high” and would he please draft a bill for taxation*, Katz went ballistic.

“This request is outrageous. You have a full narrative. I am not taxing my bill,” was the furious and immediate response of South Africa’s most controversial insolvency lawyer, widely known as Lennie the Liquidator. Katz declared that Fey’s request for his bill to be taxed was “dishonest” and his firm would do no more work on the matter. “Furthermore, I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that you are removed as a trustee in this estate,” ran the attorney’s email. “You are dishonest and a disgrace to the profession.”

In his fury, Katz copied his “you are dishonest” email to eight prominent members of the insolvency world, including the Deputy Master of the Western Cape high court Irma Dick. And in a separate email to Cata Silile, the court’s Assistant Master, Katz wrote: “I am going to be lodging a formal complaint against Ms Fey. In my view, she is dishonest, does not act in the interests of creditors, and should be removed forthwith.” Katz copied this second email to the recipients of his first one, adding in an insolvency practitioner at KPMG.

While this flurry of emails took place on 5 April 2017. It is only now that they have come to light after Eileen Fey launched a belated and unreported R500,000 defamation action against Leonard Katz this March – just in time to beat the three-year prescription deadline. She claims that his statements about her were defamatory and false.