Father and son mining magnates Brett and Roger Kebble will appeal to the Constitutional Court after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) struck from the roll their application on seven share-price manipulation charges.
The Kebbles’ lawyer, Sharon Wapnick, said on Thursday her clients argued that some of the charges they faced were civil and not criminal offences.
”The primary question before the court was whether the SCA had jurisdiction to hear an appeal … before the commencement of the trial.”
She said they will appeal to the Constitutional Court to rule on whether their civil rights would be infringed by having to endure a lengthy trial based on what may prove to be invalid charges.
Meanwhile, the registrar of the SCA said in a statement that as a general rule piecemeal appeals are not permitted.
This is because it is usually in the interests of justice for a trial to run its course.
”An appeal before the end of the trial could cause delays, and among other things, turn out to have been unnecessary if the charges were eventually to fail for other reasons.”
According to the SCA, six of the seven counts against which the Kebbles as well as JCI director Hendrik Buitendag wanted to appeal alleged fraud, with various alternative charges. They face 13 charges altogether.
The seventh count was one of insider trading in contravention of the Insider Trading Act of 1998.
”All the counts in some way concern a series of share-dealings between October 1999 and January 2000, the purpose of which was to restructure the group of companies known as the JCI-Randgold Group,” read the statement.
”At the time, according to the indictment, Western Areas was one of seven companies in the group and Brett Kebble was the company’s chief executive officer.
”Hendrik Buitendag was a director of JCI Gold, another company in the group, and Roger Kebble was executive chairman of Durban Roodepoort Deep.
”Essential to the restructuring was acquisition of all the shares in Randfontein Estates, a third company in the group.”
According to the prosecution, the four decided to acquire the Randfontein shares through a scheme of arrangement in terms of the Companies Act.
”To succeed, the scheme needed a 75% ‘yes’ vote at a Randfontein shareholders’ meeting,” read the SCA statement.
”The state case is that the offences charged, and certain related breaches of the Companies Act and rules of the Securities Regulation Panel established under the Companies Act, were committed by the accused, acting in concert, in an attempt to acquire the number of Randfontein shares necessary to achieve that vote.
”The fraud counts allege that the accused failed to disclose facts which they were under a duty by statute and at common law to disclose.” — Sapa