M&G
Mail & Guardian reporters
Financial adviser Magnus Heystek has withdrawn his R2-million defamation action against the Mail & Guardian, and has agreed to pay the newspaper’s costs.
Heystek withdrew from the case against the M&G this week as the newspaper went to court to compel him to disclose documents relating to the case. It was the third in a series of court applications to extract the documentation.
The articles in question related mainly to Heystek’s handling of a family trust – the Berman Family Trust – of which he was a trustee. The trust was set up by Monica Berman, who died leaving two under-age children. She had inherited over R21- million from a separate family trust and transferred about R5-million into the Berman Family Trust. Heystek also had signing powers on Monica Berman’s bank accounts as well as powers of attorney, and was one of the executors of her estate. The M&G reported how Heystek had appeared to create an “eyebrow-raising conflict of interest” by the apparent closeness of his own business financial activities with those of a trust where he was a trustee.
Earlier this month Heystek won a court action against Lionel Reichenberg, a well-known vexatious litigant, for violating an interdict obtained last year forbidding him to talk about the Berman case.
Reichenberg became involved in the case after being approached by Monica Berman’s ex-husband, Clive Berman, who has settled a defamation case from Heystek by apologising and retracting statements about Heystek’s handling of the trust.
In a letter to the M&G’s attorneys Heystek’s lawyer, David Levithan, said following these court judgments in his favour Heystek “sees little to be achieved in pursuing his case against your client as, as far as he is concerned, the Orders procured and admissions made by Reichenberg and Berman … are sufficient”. In a Style magazine article Heystek was quoted as saying he had felt “gang-raped” by the articles.
Reichenberg has lodged criminal defamation charges against the M&G for its satirical accounts of his conduct in the Krisjan Lemmer column.
Heystek has consistently sought to discredit the M&G’s accounts of the case by claiming Berman and Reichenberg were the newspaper’s sources. Although Berman has settled Heystek’s defamation case, he is pushing ahead with other actions against Heystek.
Heystek has repeatedly defended himself in print and on the airwaves. Among his false allegations against the M&G have been that the editor inserted the phrase “fraudulent financial adviser” into a reader’s letter. Neither he nor his lawyer have taken up the invitation to examine the original document.
He has also accused the M&G of lying about an agreement in which he would answer questions about the allegations if they were submitted in writing. The M&G has proof of the conversation in which Heystek agreed to this, and the deadline – as well as the final conversation in which he refused to comment or give a reason why.