By Karyn Maughan
Fidentia curator Dines Gihwala has admitted defeat in an acrimonious legal battle with a Swiss company, whose claims against him he previously dismissed as baseless and aimed at embarrassing him.
Gihwala, who has acted for Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and provided legal advice to Dr Frene Ginwala on axed prosecuting head Vusi Pikoli's fitness to hold office, has conceded to every single claim made against him by Swiss-based investment management firm Montague Goldsmith.
He had previously described the company's application as an abuse of the legal process and asked for it to be dismissed.
Gihwala is also facing a possible defamation claim from Montague Goldsmith's chief executive Karim Issa Mawji, who Gihwala suggested was racially prejudiced and described as "insulting, aggressive and rude".
According to a Cape High Court order given by Acting Judge President Jeanette Traverso, Gihwala now has to provide a statement of account showing what he did with the R4-million that Montague Goldsmith deposited into his firm's trust account.
The chairperson of the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors also has to transfer to Montague Goldsmith a 31 percent share in a black economic empowerment deal said to be worth about R234-million.
Gihwala previously insisted the Swiss company was not entitled to the shareholding.
Court documents reveal that it was Gihwala's reputation in the legal and business community that prompted Montague Goldsmith to pay about R4-million to the trust account of legal firm Hofmeyr Herbstein & Gihwala, of which Gihwala is chairman, for investment by Gihwala and businessman Lancelot Manala.
Mawji stated in court papers that the company had become a joint shareholder with Gihwala and Manala in a company called Seena Marena Investment (SMI) in return for R4-million in funding.
In 2005 SMI brought a 58 percent shareholding in Ngatana Property Investments, the empowerment vehicle investing in Spearhead Property Holdings.
After Spearhead was subsequently sold to listed property loan stock company Redefine Income Fund, shareholders were offered 6,18 Redefine units for one Spearhead unit - a significant profit on their investment.
A month before this takeover bid was announced, according to Mawji, Gihwala disputed Montague Goldsmith's shareholding interest in SMI for the first time by claiming that the money invested by Montague Goldsmith was a loan to Manala and nothing more.
Gihwala later claimed that it was "impossible" for Mawji or his companies to have become shareholders as they were not historically disadvantaged South Africans.
He later seemingly abandoned that position by agreeing to the Cape High Court settlement order.
Montague Goldsmith had also gone to court to force Gihwala to provide details of two investments intended to be made by Gihwala on their behalf in Scharrig Mining Limited (now known as Sentula Mining Limited), a South African company listed on the JSE.
The initial investments, one of R1-million and the other R10-million, were repaid to Montague Goldsmith. The repayment included some return on the R1-million investment
But the company claimed that it was not clear whether the investments were actually made and, if they were, what had happened to the interest they had accrued.
Claiming that the company's application was unfounded, Gihwala previously argued that it was "nothing other than an attempt to harass and embarrass me".
Montague Goldsmith's attorney Vlad Movshovich said Gihwala had provided his client with some documents related to the investments, but these were "wholly inadequate".
It was not clear if the investments, of R1-million and R10-million, were made.
- Read the full story in today's editions of
newspaper.