Fidentia’s curators took another bite out of J Arthur Brown’s empire on Monday when they secured control over the multimillion-rand Facets property in Cape Town’s Century City.
The curators were granted an order by Cape High Court Judge Daniel Dlodlo putting the property, registered in the name of the Brown family trust, into their hands.
They have been authorised to sell off or otherwise deal with the property, which until earlier this year housed a ladies’ lifestyle centre run by Brown’s wife, Susan, ”in the manner deemed appropriate by them”.
In papers before the court, co-curator Dines Gihwala said the trust acquired the property with R24,5-million in investor funds misappropriated from the Fidentia group.
He said Brown registered the property in the name of the family trust in circumstances that were both fraudulent and in flagrant breach of Brown’s obligations as a Fidentia director.
”In the particular circumstances of this matter, there was a clear conflict of interest between Brown in relation to the trust and Brown qua director in relation to the fiduciary duty he owed to the companies within the Fidentia group,” Gihwala said.
Brown had fraudulently maintained that the property was in fact a Fidentia asset.
Gihwala said it seemed clear that the family trust was created at least in part for the purpose of hiding the theft of funds from Fidentia.
”The trust is to all intents and purposes Brown’s alter ego,” he said.
The lifestyle centre, of which Mrs Brown was the sole director, was placed under provisional liquidation in March.
In the papers, Gihwala repeated his assertion that in the region of R1-billion has gone missing from Fidentia.
Brown and financial director Graham Maddock are on bail of R1-million each after being arrested earlier this year on charges of fraud and theft. — Sapa