In a botChed “strategIC” PIg farM liquidation, a Pietermaritzburg liquidator, Africa’s largest law firm ENSafrica and sundry bottom feeders have been found not only to have effectively expropriated land without compensation from the rightful owner, but – in their haste to cover their tracks – they were also found to have invented a “tacit lease” agreement with the land owner in terms of which, so they claimed, their mere presence on the farm substituted for any rent they might have been obliged to pay.
All this is revealed in a preliminary report commissioned by the Pretoria High Court Master’s Office, filed in September.
Section 381 (3) of the Companies Act empowers the Master to “appoint a person to investigate the books and vouchers of a liquidator” if there is “reason to believe that a liquidator is not faithfully performing his [their] duties and duly observing all the requirements imposed on him [them]”.
The investigator, Pretoria-based Theo van den Heever of D&T Trust has found that Pietermaritzburg liquidator Pierre Berrangé with the help of ENSafrica insolvency attorney Adam Lombard (department head: Lennie “the Liquidator” Katz), commandeered and then leased out the Vryheid pig farm in question for over four-and-a-half years, rent free, and must now cough up anywhere between R2.1m and R14m in rent, with immediate effect. The discrepancy in estimates of the outstanding amount relates to just how much the land is valued at – now estimated at multiples of what the liquidators and their valuators had suggested it might realise on a forced sale.
And the investigator promises even more findings are on the way.
Denne historien er fra November 2019-utgaven av Noseweek.
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Denne historien er fra November 2019-utgaven av Noseweek.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Lennie The Liquidator Faces R500,000 Defamation Suit
After losing his cool when his fees were questioned
Panel Beater De Luxe
Danmar Autobody and its erstwhile directors get a serious panel beating in court papers. Corruption and theft are said to have destroyed the firm chaired by Nelson Mandela’s eldest daughter, leaving 200 workers destitute and threatening to kill.
Meet Covid Diarist Ronald Wohlman
Ronald Wohlman – EX SOUTH African copywriter, author, and actor – never dreamt that his lockdown diaries, written on Facebook and followed by people all over the world – would become his “life’s work”.
A Picture Of Peace?
Beware: Appearances can be deceptive
Flogging A (Battery-Driven) Dead Horse
Why plug-in vehicles are not all they’re cracked up to be– and, likely, never will be
Everybody Drinks Corona
I am hesitant to go Into the pub today. Not because it’s illegal, but there is a crème colored 1985 Mercedes 300D parked behind the pine tree. This means the devil is inside; that’s what we call Dr. De Villiers. You don’t know whether you will encounter the good doctor with the charming bedside manner or the violent, bipolar bully. The problem is, most of the time, you can never be sure which it is, so it’s best to always keep a social distance.
Never Take A Hypochondriac To A Pandemic
From Ronald Wohlman’s New York Corona Diary
The money train
Transnet in court battle with liquidators of Gupta-linked audit firm over R57m in ‘corrupt’ payments and invoices
‘He's no pharmaceutical genius, he's a vulture'
Pharma con seeks prison release to ‘help find Covid cure’
Bush school – A memoir
OUR SCHOOL WAS IN THE MIDDLE of the bush, ten miles from the nearest town in the harsh beauty of the Zimbabwean highveld. It started life in World War II as No 26 EFTS Guinea Fowl, a Royal Air Force elementary flying training school and I arrived there in 1954, just seven years after it became an all-white co-ed state boarding school.
