Areeba case, hearing pushed to April 30

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday, April18, 2007
The Commercial Court in Accra has adjourned to April 30, proceedings in the case in which Richmond Aggrey, a Ghanaian businessman is claiming 20 per cent shares in Scancom Limited, operators of Areeba mobile phone service.

The court was due yesterday to hear a motion for judgement in default of defence filed by Mr. Aggrey against Areeba when Mr. Benson Nustukpui, counsel for the defendant (Areeba) told the court that they had just filed an application for extention of time to enable them to file their defence to contest the case.

Following the development, Justice Henry Kwofie, the trial judge adjourned the proceedings and awarded ¢8 million cost against Areeba for the delay.

The other defendants in the substantive suit are Investcom Consortium Holdings S.A. of Beirut, Lebanon, and Grandview Management of Texas, United States.

The court, on July 14, last year, granted Mr. Aggrey an exparte application to restrain the defendants from going ahead to conclude a merger agreement with the MTN Company of South Africa.


Mr. Aggrey had argued that “continuing and / or concluding a merger with and / or acquisition of Investment LLC by MTN without taking into account and/or providing for the plaintiff’s 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 third party.”


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


The trial court on October 20, however, ruled that the processes followed by Mr Aggrey in instituting the suit were proper and ordered Areeba to file its defence within 14 days.


Consequently, Areeba filed a notice of appeal to challenge the court’s ruling and another motion on notice to stay proceedings pending the appeal but by Justice Kwofie dismissed it on December 8, and awarded ¢10 million cost against Areeba.

Areeba then went to the Court of Appeal to challenge the trial court’s decision and this was again dismissed by a three member panel on March 27, and awarded ¢5 million cost against the appellant.

At the trial when Mr. Nutsukpui announced that he had filed the application for extention of time, Mr. Felix Ntirakwah, counsel for Investcom also told the court that they had also filed an application for stay of proceedings pending arbitration.

Mr. Thaddeus Sory, counsel for Grandview, a co- defendant, then told the court that they had filed an interlocutory injunction to restrain the parties from any arbitral proceedings but Mr. Nutsukpui cut in to say that Grandview was no longer part of the arbitration process and they had communicated to counsel in that respect.

Mr. Sory then replied that the normal way for Areeba to react to his application was through an affidavit and not a mere submission, saying “developments in the case has shown that our application still pends”.

Eager to move the application for judgement in default, Mr. Yonnie Kulendi counsel for Mr. Aggrey told the court that what Areeba was seeking to do was an abuse of the court’s processes saying “Instead of Areeba filing its defence since the commencement of the suit they opted to challenge the jurisdiction of the trial court and the propriety of the plaintiff’s suit”.

“We filed this application for judgement in default of defence on December 8, last year, and there can be no turns up on why Areeba will wait untill today to ask for extention of time to file their defence”.

At this point, Mr. Nutsukpui then cut in to say that they had not moved the application for counsel to comment on the merits of it.

Justice Kwofie adjourned the sitting but was not happy the way the application by Areeba was brought saying “I do not like this business of applications being filed left right centre at the last hour”

The court also asked Areeba to respond to Grandview’s application for interlocutory injunction on notice.

In a related development, the court will on May 3, commence the trial of a contempt proceedings initiated by Mr. Aggrey against Investcom, Areeba and 10 others for allegedly making attempts to go to arbitration outside the country while the case in pending in the court.

The court adjourned proceedings because Justice Kwofie said he had noticed that some of the respondents were to be served outside the jurisdiction and there was no indication whether or not they had duly been served.