Areeba now MTN in Ghana is a leading mobile phone service provider in the West African country
By William Yaw Owusu
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
The Commercial Court in Accra yesterday commenced full trial of the case in which Richmond Aggrey, a businessman, is claiming 20 per cent shares in Scancom Limited, operators of Areeba Mobile phone service now MTN.
Mr Aggrey, former Vice Chairman of Areeba, has sued the telecommunication giant and Investcom Consortium Holdings S.A of Beirut Lebanon, who were the majority shareholders in Areeba, as well as Grandview Management of Texas, United States, to claim his share.
The case which was instituted in July 2006, has reached full trial stage because the parties have failed to agree on pre-trial settlement in accordance with the rules of the Commercial Court.
The court then presided over by Justice Henry Kwofie on July 14, 2006 granted Mr Aggrey an ex-parte application to restrain Investcom, Scancom and Grandview from going ahead to conclude a merger with the MTN Company of South Africa.
Mr Aggrey had argued among other things that "continuing and/or concluding a merger with and/or acquisition of Investcom LLC by MTN without taking into account and/or providing for the plaintiffs 20 per cent share 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 grant of the injunction, Scancom 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 but it was dismissed by both the trial court and the Court of Appeal.
Investcom also filed for stay of proceedings pending arbitration between them and Mr Aggrey in London but that was also dismissed by both the trial court and the Court of Appeal. Mr Philip Forson, Counsel for Investcom, however indicated yesterday that they have appealed against that ruling at the Supreme Court.
Yonny Kulendi, counsel for Mr Aggrey in response argued that the plaintiff has not been served with any process from the Supreme Court and Justice Barbara Ackah-Ayensu, the new trial judge told Mr Forson "we are not there yet".
The case on November 20, took a dramatic turn when Grandview opposed the stay of proceedings application filed by its co-defendant, Scancom.
Mr Thaddeus Sory who represented Grandview had described Scancom’s action as "a process masked to waste the court’s time and delay the speedy trial of the case".
In the witness box to give evidence yesterday was Mr Aggrey, the plaintiff, who told the court that his businesses cover many industries including telecommunication and petroleum.
Led in evidence by Mr Kulendi, his counsel, Mr Aggrey said scancom was in existence before he joined them adding, "I acquired 20 per cent shares and became a vice chairman".
He said Investcom was the majority shareholder but there were other minority shareholders including David Hesse, Scam Construction and Telle 2 Norleet, saying "the two principal owners of Scancom Limited were Investcom and myself.
He said a year after joining Scancom, one of the Lebanese with Scancom told him that he had information that the company would be jeopardised if he (the plaintiff) did not offload his interest from it.
"I called the then Communication Minister, Edward Salia who confirmed it and said the former President was being misinformed about my involvement in Scancom."
Mr Aggrey told the court that he subsequently left for Nigeria and the board of directors of Scancom later asked him to transfer his shares to his nominee called Chris Wilmot, a distant cousin who served on the board and who is now in charge of Grandview in order to protect Scancom from any jeopardy.
"They faxed to me in Nigeria the share transfer agreement between Wilmot and myself which I executed."
Mr Aggrey tendered in evidence a copy of the share transfer agreement at which point the court adjourned proceedings until May 7, when Mr Aggrey will continue with his evidence.
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