Reunert has committed fraud: Holdsworth
John Holdsworth, founder and CEO of start-up telco AppChat, says he has documented evidence which proves that listed ICT player Reunert misled the court.
In the meantime, Holdsworth was granted leave to appeal following a ruling delivered in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein on 25 January.
Holdsworth petitioned the SCA in November, requesting that leave to appeal be granted against the judgment handed down on 24 August 2012 by Justice S Baqwa in the North Gauteng High Court and his subsequent judgment on 22 October 2012 – in terms of which application for leave to appeal was declined.
The panel of judges ordered that leave to appeal was granted to the full Bench of the North Gauteng High Court.
“The costs of the court a quo in dismissing the application for leave to appeal is set aside and costs of the application for leave to appeal in this court and the court a quo are costs in the appeal,” the SCA said.
Reunert vs Holdsworth round one
Reunert originally brought an application in March 2012, in which it sought to enforce a contractual restraint of trade against Holdsworth and obtain interdicts preventing Holdsworth and AppChat from ever competing against it.
The case was founded on an allegation by Reunert that AppChat was intending to directly compete with a mobile VoIP application that Nashua ECN were developing and had planned to launch imminently.
Holdsworth was the founder and CEO of ECN (Nashua), a provider of IP-based next generation network services. He sold that business to Reunert in July 2011.
He denied Reunert’s allegations, claiming that ECN had never traded in the mobile market and that its entire business was in the fixed line market.
Misleading the court
In new evidence placed before the Supreme Court of Appeal, Holdsworth has claimed in his founding affidavit that:
“Documentary evidence came into my possession from a whistle blower within Nashua ECN that proves that Reunert misled the court. The evidence proves that, contrary to its founding and replying affidavits, Reunert had not budgeted either for income or expenditure on its alleged mobile VoIP application and did not have any intention of developing a mobile VoIP application or launching a mobile VoIP service.”
“It would appear that this version was concocted for purposes of the application. I am aware that the allegations I am making are of a serious nature. I do not make these allegations lightly. I say that Reunert has committed a fraud on the court and on AppChat.”
Holdsworth stressed that his attorney has written to Reunert’s attorneys recording that he is laying charges of perjury against Reunert and the deponent to its affidavits.
“The case will now move forward to a full Bench of the North Gauteng High Court, where we expect to prevail,” Holdsworth said.
AppChat’s Notice of Appeal must be served and filed within 20 days of Leave to Appeal having been granted- 26 March 2013.
Reunert has 10 days to deliver a notice of cross appeal.
“Once we have done so, we will be justified in appealing to the Judge President of the North Gauteng High Court for an urgent hearing.”
“As the case starts to unravel so we’re getting closer to being able to tell the whole story and what really happened” Holdsworth said.
Reunert said that to date, it has won all four of its visits to the North Gauteng High Court with costs and was confident that it would prevail.
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