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Mpumalanga High Court rules in favour of SSC Group
The Siyakhula Sonke Empowerment Corporation (SSC) and its subsidiary, Flaming Silver Trading 373 (Flaming Silver), collectively known as the SSC Group have received judgement in the first part of the matter with Vantage Goldfields SA (VGSA), which relates to the intervention application brought by Ferdi Dippenaar. Dippenaar was dismissed by the SSC Flaming Silver board for serious misconduct, inter alia, leaking confidential information to the Vantage directors, whom he subsequently joined forces with to frustrate SSC / Flaming Silver's efforts to re-open the mines.
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Parties appeared before the Mpumalanga High Court on 28 May 2019. On Friday 7 June 2019, the Judge delivered judgement and ruled in Flaming Silver’s favour, dismissing Dippenaar’s application with costs. In summary, the judgment read as follows:
I, therefore make the following order:
- That the Intervening party, Ferdinand Dippenaar is hereby joined as the 5th respondent in the main application.
- That all pleadings filed of record be served upon the party joined as the 5th respondent within 10 days of the date of this order.
- That the intervening party’s application in terms of prayer 3 for the resolution dated 12 November 2018 by the board of directors of the applicant to ratify the signing of the fourth addendum to the Sale of Shares Agreement to be declared null and void, is hereby dismissed with costs.
This has now paved the way for the hearing of Flaming Silver’s main application against VGSA on an urgent basis, as the advancement of the main application was dependent on the outcome of the intervention application, as a result of the nature of the relief sought by Dippenaar in his application. Amongst the relief sought by him, was that he be joined as a party to the main application (which was never objected to by SSC / Flaming Silver) and that the resolution taken by the board of directors of Flaming Silver to ratify the Fourth Addendum to the sale of shares agreement be declared null and void, this would then have the consequent effect that sale of shares agreement would become null and void and would no longer exist.
Flaming Silver filed an urgent court application to compel VGSA to meet its obligations to enable Flaming Silver to take over the relevant shareholding in Vantage Goldfields (VGL) and Makonjwaan Imperial Mining Company (Lily Mine), as set out in a sale of shares agreement and hand over the share certificates of VGL and Lily Mine, together with all other relevant documentation set out in the sale of shares agreement.
The SSC Group remains positive that the court will rule in their favour in the main application as well. “We are grateful for the court’s ruling in our favour. As a result, we are one step closer to re-opening the mines, and put an end to the suffering of thousands of people,” said SSC Group CEO, Fred Arendse.
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