Rolf Patel fights on: Press Corp, Cane Products case adjourned to December

The Malawi Supreme Court on Monday adjourned a case to December 3 on the matter of who is the genuine owner of the profit making company Presscane Company Limited between Press Corporation (PCL)  and Cane Products Ltd (CPL).

PCL wants Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the High Court of the commercial Division which ruled in 2014 that PCL has no shares in the company because their shares were turned into loans and paid back while CPL wants Supreme Court to incorporate Price Water Coopers report to form part of the ruling.

Cane Products Limited – which is owned by former Minister of energy and Mining Rolf Patel Himself, and his sons; Reuben, Stanley and James Patel – and Press Corporation Limited entered into Joint Venture Agreement in 2001 in which PCL was given a majority shares of 50.1 % against 49.9%.

During the time of this venture according to the court records Cane Products Limited had already established the company by investing heavily in capital assets.

Investigations which Price Water House made revealed that all PCL shares were turned into loans.

Judge Justice Frank Kapanda said he wants all preliminaries sorted out before starting the hearing of the actual appeal.

Kapanda who is presiding over the case alongside Justice Dunstan  Mwaungulu and Judge Anthony Kamanga, told the court that he was not happy to note that there is lack of good preparation in terms of preliminaries.

“Today is 23 am giving you up to 3 December, 2015, to work on preliminaries so that there should not be unnecessary adjournments,” observed Kapanda.

Representing Press Corporation, lawyer Davis Njobvu objected to start full hearing arguing that there are insufficient documents to kick start the case.

But lawyer Justice Dzonzi who is  representing Cane Products Limited stood and objected to claim by Njobvu arguing that there court ruling did not want the additional documentations to form part of the court proceedings because the appellants did not testify on over the same after the High court asked them to do so.