Shuttleworth gets green light to appeal exchange control ruling

·17 Sep 2013

South African IT billionaire, Mark Shuttleworth, as well as the South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) have been granted leave to appeal a judgement by Judge Francis Legodi regarding South Africa’s exchange control system.

In July, Shuttleworth‘s bid to have South Africa’s entire exchange control system of South Africa declared unconstitutional, failed.

Judge Legodi dismissed Shuttleworth’s application to set aside the imposition of a R250 million levy he had to pay to get some of his assets out of the country in 2009, and for the Reserve Bank to return his money.

It was reported by Forbes in August that, because of the exchange controls, it cost Shuttleworth more to get his money out of South Africa ($30 million) than it did to get him into space in 2001 ($20 million).

While Shuttleworth was unsuccessful in getting the court to rule in favour of challenges which affected him personally, peripheral challenges of the exchange control system were overturned.

Shuttleworth launched an application to appeal the ruling early September, while Sarb launched a simultaneous application to cross-appeal, according to legal documents, hosted by Moneyweb.

“I have carefully considered each ground of appeal raised in the two applications, respectively,” Legodi said in granting leave for the two parties to appeal.

“Similarly, I have seriously reconsidered the findings made in the main judgement. The issue is whether there are prospects of success on appeal. Put differently, whether another court might find differently from the findings by this court.”

According to a previous report by Moneyweb, Shuttleworth will persist in his claim for repayment of the R250 million.

The matter will be heard by 5 judges in the Supreme Court of Appeal, which is expected to play out in the first quarter of 2014.