STX Boss Offers Settlement To Koreans

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday November 16, 2011.
Once again, the legal tussle over who should lead the construction of the controversial STX Korea Housing projects resumed at the Commercial Court, Accra yesterday but nothing meaningful was done.

When the case was called the trial judge, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo announced that the court had received a letter from Osafo Buaben, counsel for the 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 8th defendants - including STX Engineering and Construction Ghana Limited and STX Construction Company Limited in Seoul - asking the court for permission to enable him attend a Supreme Court hearing.

Carl Adongo representing Bernard Kwabena Asamoah, the man credited for introducing the STX housing deal to the NDC government, as a result told the court that his client has a settlement package for the Koreans.

“We have given counsel (Mr. Buaben) the terms of agreement for settlement”, he told the court, and offered the judge a copy of the document but the judge said “I cannot have a look at this document because it is not filed”.

GKA Airports Company Limited owned by B.K. Asamoah went to court in effect seeking a declaration that the Korean partners are no longer owners of the project, a move the Koreans have vowed to resist.

The Koreans were the first to go to court over who owns the company when they sued B.K. Asamoah, Registrar-General and others for allegedly diluting the company’s shares to GKA Airport’s advantage but the Fast Track High Court presided over by Justice NMC Abodakpi adjourned proceedings sine die because the processes to get the case heard were not completed.

The GKA Airports suit is citing STX Engineering and Construction Ghana Limited and STX Construction Company Limited in Seoul as the 1st and 2nd defendants with Kook Hyun Kim, Su Jou Kim, Daniel Jung, Seong Hoon Kang, Yong Chan Kim, Im-Dong Park, Ji Hoon Hwang and Man Kang as 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th respondents respectively.

The plaintiff is seeking reliefs including a “declaration that by terminating the Joint Venture Agreement and Heads of Agreement, 2nd respondent renounced its membership of 1st respondent.”

They also want a further declaration that by failing to make direct investment in 1st respondent by way of equity contribution, the 2nd respondent “is statutorily barred from taking part in all of 1st Respondent’s operations”.

They want an order of injunction restraining 2nd respondent from holding itself out and/or purporting to act or discharge my functions as shareholders of 1st respondent and another order restraining the 3rd to 10th defendants from holding themselves as directors of 1st respondent.

GKA Airports want further declaration that the resolution purportedly passed by 1st respondent's board of directors at the meeting held on August 18, 2011 to convene an extraordinary general meeting of 1st Respondent is illegal, null, void and of no effect.”

The plaintiff wants a declaration that “the notices dated August 29, 2011 and September 8, 2011 respectively of an extraordinary general meeting of 1st respondent to be held in 1st respondent’s conference room on October 6, 2011 at 4.00 p.m. are illegal, null, void and of no effect.”

Finally, they want another order of injunction “restraining respondents from holding the extraordinary general meeting scheduled to take place on October 6, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. at 1st respondent's conference room.”

However, the defendants (Koreans) fired back disputing the claims of the plaintiff and made counter-claims against the plaintiffs.

In their affidavit in opposition filed October 17 and deposed to by Daniel Jung, the defendants say they have not executed any transfer of its shares neither has the shares been affected by any law or statute.

He said STX Engineering and Construction Ghana Limited was incorporated on November 17, 2009 and the subscribers to its regulation were both STX Construction Company Ltd and GKA Airports Company Ltd adding “the 2nd respondent subscribed to 15,000 shares whilst the applicant subscribed to 7,400 shares.”

“The right of the 2nd respondent as a subscriber to the regulations of the 1st respondent are guaranteed and or prescribed by statute”, the defendants averred.

Even though President John Evans Atta Mills cut the sod in January 2011 for the commencement of the project, boardroom wrangling between the Koreans and their Ghanaian partners has stalled the construction of 200,000 housing units in the country, starting with 30,000 houses for the security services at the cost of $10 billion.