COURT ORDERS AREEBA TO OPEN DEFENCE

By William Yaw Owusu

Saturday October 21,2006
THE Commercial Court in Accra yesterday ruled that the writ of summons and service filed by Richmond Aggrey, a businessman who is claiming 20 per cent shares in Scancom Ghana Limited, operators of Areeba GSM, is proper.

The court has therefore ordered Scancom (Areeba) and two others who have been joined in the suit to file their defence within 14 days for the substantive motion to be moved.

Mr. Aggrey filed the suit against Investment Consortium Holdings S.A. of Beirut, Lebanon, Scancom Ghana Limited and Grandview Management of Texas, United States and got an export order on July 14, to restrain the defendants from going ahead to conclude a merger agreement with MTN Company of South Africa.

The writ claimed that, “Continuing, progressing and/or concluding a merger with and/or acquisition of Investcom LLC by MTN.Company of South Africa without taking into account and or providing for the plaintiffs 20 per cent shares in Scancom Limited will occasion the loss of his shareholding in the company by reason of the accrual of the rights of MTN Group as a third party.”

Following the development, Scancom Limited filed/an application on July 24, to strike out Mr. Aggrey’s action “in part or whole” on the grounds that the plaintiff failed to adhere to procedures in filing the application.

Scancom had argued that Mr. Aggrey did not take leave of service before affecting the process on its co-defendants: Investcom and Grandview who are outside the court’s jurisdiction.

Scancom, represented by Mr. Benson Nutsukpui, said the mandatory requirement of seeking leave of the court to issue a writ outside the jurisdiction, was not met.

The court, in refusing to grant Scancom’s application, said that although failure to apply for leave to issue the writ was “an irregularity”, Order 81 of the High Court Rules could be used to “cure” that irregularity.

Immediately the court gave the ruling, Mr. Yonni Kulendi, Counsel for plaintiff, requested that a cost be awarded against Scancom but the court declined the request.

Mr. Kulundi then said that there were corporate processes that could take place if the court did not restrict plaintiff and defendants to a time frame.

Mr. William Fugah, who represented Investcom Consortium Holdings, appealed that the ex-parte application of the plaintiff should not be extended by the court.

Mr. Nutsukpui then came in to say that the issue was taken care of before the deal itself and it would be cosmetic for them to hold on to a court order that had fully been complied with.

To this, the court explained that the effect of granting the plaintiff’s motion is that nothing should be done until the issue is looked into”.