{"id":32583,"date":"2013-02-28T15:17:52","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T13:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=32583"},"modified":"2013-03-01T08:35:04","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T06:35:04","slug":"reunert-hits-back-at-appchat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/32583\/reunert-hits-back-at-appchat\/","title":{"rendered":"Reunert hits back at AppChat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Openshaw<\/a>, MD at\u00a0Nashua Communications<\/a> has defended JSE-listed ICT company Reunert<\/a>\u2019s court record against start-up AppChat<\/a>, saying that the company is \u201ccomfortable\u201d with its case against founder John Holdsworth.<\/p>\n

It follows accusations that Reunert misled the court in the ongoing case, and acted fraudulently.<\/p>\n

Nashua Communications is a whole owned subsidiary of Reunert, having merged with Nashua ECN<\/a> in September 2012.<\/p>\n

Reunert originally brought an application in March 2012, in which it sought to enforce a contractual restraint of trade against Holdsworth<\/a> and obtain interdicts preventing Holdsworth and AppChat from ever competing against it.<\/p>\n

The case was founded on an allegation by Reunert that AppChat was intending to directly compete with a mobile VoIP application that\u00a0Nashua ECN\u00a0were developing and had planned to launch imminently.<\/p>\n

Holdsworth was the founder and CEO of ECN (Nashua), a provider of IP-based next generation network services. He sold that business to\u00a0Reunert\u00a0in July 2011.<\/p>\n

He denied Reunert\u2019s allegations, claiming that ECN had never traded in the mobile market and that its entire business was in the fixed line market.<\/p>\n

Holdsworth\u00a0was granted leave to appeal following\u00a0a ruling delivered in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein\u00a0on 25 January.<\/p>\n

New claims<\/h3>\n

On Wednesday (27 February 2012), Holdsworth claimed he has documented evidence which\u00a0proves that\u00a0Reunert\u00a0misled the court.<\/p>\n

He calims that 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.<\/p>\n

Nashua\u2019s Openshaw said that the SCA\u2019s decision was not a shock to the company. \u201cWe had expected it to happen,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have had lots of mud flung at us recently,\u201d Openshaw said, adding that the company did not want to get itself involved in that kind of behaviour, instead leaving it up to court procedure to argue its case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very comfortable with our case. All previous accusations have been proven wrong by the court,\u201d Openshaw said, adding that he expected the same outcome in future.<\/p>\n

Reunert pointed out that in four previous visits to the North Gauteng High Court had seen the company prevail, with costs.<\/p>\n

Openshaw also pointed out that restrictions currently placed on AppChat \u201care still in place\u201d.<\/p>\n

The case will now move forward to a full Bench of the North Gauteng High Court.<\/p>\n

More on Reunert and AppChat<\/h3>\n

Reunert has committed fraud: Holdsworth<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Holdsworth ready to sacrifice all in Reunert battle<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

AppChat\u2019s Holdsworth: \u201cCowboys don\u2019t cry\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Holdsworth to appeal AppChat ruling<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

AppChat to forge ahead?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Reunert vs. Holdsworth: High court rules<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Holdsworth accuses Reunert of delaying tactics<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reunert has hit back at AppChat founder John Holdsworth by defending its court record against the start-up, adding that it is \u201ccomfortable\u201d with its case, despite allegations of fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":32584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[2434,1878,26,66,4164,555,1707],"class_list":["post-32583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-andy-openshaw","tag-appchat","tag-headline","tag-john-holdsworth","tag-nashua-communications","tag-reunert","tag-voip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32583"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32599,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32583\/revisions\/32599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}