adminRichard Muponde
BUSINESS mogul Mr John Moxon’s Bulawayo-based Cotton Printers is embroiled in a prolonged legal battle with over 200 of its former workers who are demanding payment of their terminal benefits worth over $4 million, dating back to six-years ago.
Mr Moxon is the chairman of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed Meikles Group. The matter has seen the company having its property in Bulawayo worth over half a million being attached by the Sheriff of the High Court to settle the debt.
This was after the employees used a writ of execution issued in April 2011 after they registered an arbitral award given by the arbitrator, a PA Chenyika, with the High Court. An order was given in their favour by Justice Nicholas Mathonsi.
“It is ordered that the arbitration award given by PA Chenyika on January 10, 2011 in the matter involving the parties be and is hereby registered as an order of this Honourable Court. For the avoidance of doubt it be and is hereby ordered that Respondent pays to Applicants the sums outlined in the award and its attached documents,” ruled Justice Mathonsi.
On the strength of that order the Sheriff of the High Court attached Cotton Printers property and placed it under judicial attachment. However, Cotton Printers lawyers Scanlen and Holderness intervened and barred the attachment arguing that the High Court order by Justice Mathonsi was set aside by a lower court, the Labour Court.
“We act for the shareholder of the Cotton Printers (Private) Limited, a company which was liquidated. We note that you attached goods on the 13th August 2015 on the strength of a writ of execution. The judgment enforced is a court order granted on 11th April 2011. Please note the following; on 10th January 2011 the plaintiffs were granted an arbitral award by Mr Chenyika. On 11th April the award was registered as an order of the High Court. On 20th of April the plaintiffs issued a writ of execution which you are enforcing.
“Cotton Printers (Private) Limited appealed to the Labour Court against the arbitral award. The Labour Court granted the appeal and set aside the award on 17th January 2012. A copy of the judgment is attached. The ex-employees tried to appeal to the Supreme Court but their application for condonation was dismissed. Accordingly there is no judgment to enforce. You will note that at the end of the Labour Court judgment it is stated that ‘having made the above determination it follows that their registered claim at the High Court falls off and is now null and void’. We request you to stop removal of the attached property forth with. If you proceed you may be held liable for damages suffered,” the lawyers wrote.
According to court papers, retired Labour Court president Selo Nare is the one who reversed the High Court order by Justice Mathonsi. However, faced with the new development, the employees demanded to be furnished with the details of the company’s liquidation so that they get their benefits.
Last week Mr Lewis Maunze of Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre referred the matter to Nyabadza Law Chambers who wrote to Cotton Printers lawyers, Scanlen and Holderness demanding to be appraised with the documents pertaining to the company’s liquidation.
“We represent more than two hundred employees of your client, Cotton Printers Pvt Ltd please note our interest in the matter. Our clients advise us that sometime in 2010, your client was placed in liquidation. Grant Thornton Camelsa was appointed as liquidator of the company. Our clients are not clear on how the assets of the company were disposed, including land and buildings, equipment and motor vehicles. They do not have an information pertaining to the liquidation and distribution accounts of the company , neither are they aware, whether the said accounts where duly confirmed by the Master in terms of section 283 of the Companies Act Chapter 24-03,” wrote Nyabadza Law Chambers.
“You will agree without this information it is difficult for us or anyone to advise our clients on the subject on non payment of terminal benefits. It is on this vain that we kindly request your good office to avail us with the following documents assuming that you have the same, copy of the provisional order for the winding up of the company, copy of order for publication-liquidation, final order for the winding up of the company and first and final liquidation and distribution accounts for the company.”
Scanlen and Holderness are still to respond to the inquiry.
In July 2010 Meikles Ltd sought suitors for the weaving and wet processing company, Cotton Printers, which had been in liquidation since October 2009.
In a newspaper advertisement published, Cotton Printers invited bids for the takeover of the company from interested buyers but no reports of buyers having been found were announced since then. Cotton Printers, a Bulawayo-based textile company, was the country’s major producer of bed sheets with over 300 employees until it ceased operations and put its assets on sale.
The company’s employees applied for judiciary management on the basis that given time, the company would turn around.
However, the company’s lawyers then, Gill Godlonton and Gerrans, concluded that the company was beyond redemption and that liquidation was the only option.
Online Reporter