Areeba Case adjourned to October 31

By William Yaw Owusu


Saturday July 21, 2007
THE Commercial Court in Accra yesterday adjourned to October 31, the case in which Richmond Aggrey, a Ghanaian businessman, is claiming 20 per cent shares in Scancom Limited, operators of Areeba mobile phone service.

Mr. Aggrey, former Vice Chairman of Areeba, is suing the telecommunication giant together with Investcom Consortium Holdings S.A. of Beirut, Lebanon, who are majority shareholders in Areeba, as well as Grandview Management of Texas, United States to claim his shares.

When Mr. Yonnie Kulendi, counsel for the plaintiff took the floor to move a motion for an interlocutory injunction to restrain Areeba from prosecuting the arbitration proceedings, he said he had been served with an appeal by Investcom and could therefore not proceed, saying “in the circumstances we will be guided by the court’s pleasure”.

The court on May 31 dismissed an application for stay of proceedings pending an arbitration filed by Investcom and this is what the first defendant is contesting at the Court of Appeal, fixed for October 24.

The court presided over by Justice Henry Kwofie then said “let us abide by the outcome of the Court of Appeal”

The court on July 14, last year, granted Mr. Aggrey an ex-parte application to restrain the defendants from going ahead to conclude a merger 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 MT N 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 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.

The plaintiff then filed an application for judgment in default of a defence against Areeba but the second defendant filed an application for extension of time within which to file their defence.

The court on April 17, awarded ¢ 8 million cost against Areeba for the delay.

When the case was called, Mr. Nutsukpui told the court, "we have this morning filed our statement of defence and we no longer wish to move our application for extension of time."

Yonnie Kulendi, counsel for Mr. Aggrey then said: "we are by this withdrawing our application for judgment in default".

The court then struck out the two applications for the case to take its normal course and again awarded five million cedis each against Areeba and Investcom in favour of the plaintiff on April 30.