The Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein dismissed on Friday a businessman’s attempt to evade debt repayment through claiming an illegal name change by his bank.
Appeal Judge Jonathan Heher found Durbanite Robin Patrick Thorpe’s argument ‘superficially attractive’, but not surviving ‘the test of the facts or the law’.
Thorpe maintained that BOE Bank had no legal right to sue him for payment of a R2,8-million debt. This amount related to a suretyship Thorpe had undertaken in 1995 to obtain a loan from the former NBS Bank.
NBS had since changed its name first to Boland Bank PKS, and later to NBS Boland Bank and the eventual BOE Bank.
Thorpe argued that the first name changed was invalid because the Finance Minister did not give his required consent beforehand.
Heher dismissed this argument together with Thorpe’s appeal, with costs. – Sapa