The Areeba Case: Grandview Withdraws Application

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday, 04 July 2007
THE Commercial Court in Accra yesterday adjourned until July 19, 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, has sued the telecommunication giant together with Investcom Consortium Holdings S.A. of Beirut, Lebanon, majority shareholders in Areeba, as well as Grandview Management of Texas, United States, to claim his shares.

When the case was called, Mr. Thaddeus Sory, counsel for Grandview, told the court, presided over by Justice Henry Kwofie, that after conferring with his clients, they had decided to withdraw the application for interlocutory injunction to restrain Investcom and Mr Aggrey from going ahead to London for arbitration.

But Mr Benson Nutsukpui, counsel for Areeba, wanted the court to award cost against Grandview to which Mr. Sory reacted: "I was unable to proceed because of the processes that Areeba filed after our application: It is their act that has put us in this situation."

The court thus granted Grandview’s submission as having withdrawn the application and did not award any cost because Mr. Aggrey was reported to have filed another application and that was confirmed by Mr. Nutsukpui.

The court on May 31, dismissed an application for stay of proceedings pending an arbitration filed by Investcom.

On July 14, last year, Justice Kwofie granted Mr Aggrey an ex-parte 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 MT N Group as third party."

Following the development, Areeba on July 24, last year, filed an application 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 on December 8, dismissed it and awarded ¢10 million cost against Areeba.

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

Plaintiff then filed an application for judgement in default of a defence against Areeba but the second defendant filed a counter 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."

Yonny Kulendi, counsel for Mr Aggrey then said: "We are by this withdrawing our application for judgement in default".

The court then struck out the two applications for the case to take its normal course and again awarded ¢5 million each against Areeba and Investcom in favour of the plaintiff on April 30.