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Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter—
High Court judge Justice Nicholas Mathonsi has slammed bad debtors who are flooding the courts in a bid to frustrate genuine claims.
He was referring to a case in which businessman Mr Oliver Chidawu approached the court seeking to block the sale of his company assets over a US$410 000 debt.
Justice Mathonsi said he could not give Mr Chidawu and his companies an “indulgence where it is apparent that they are playing football with the court in the process succeeding in abusing the process of the court”.
Mr Chidawu and his companies, Air Zambezi (Pvt) Ltd and Heritage Insurance Company of Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd were seeking to stop OAFC Aviation Eighteen Ltd and Inter Ocean Aviation Finance Corporation from selling the assets to recover a debt.
Justice Mathonsi’s ruling comes after the Supreme Court of Mauritius delivered a judgment in September 2011 in a case in which OAFC Aviation Eighteen and Inter Ocean Finance successfully sued Mr Chidawu and his two companies.
He was ordered to pay US$410 000.
Armed with the judgment, OAFC Aviation and Inter Ocean Finance approached the High Court of Zimbabwe for provisional sentence after Mr Chidawu failed to comply with the court order to settle his debts.
All the parties appeared before Justice Martin Mafusire, who allowed the application, which was strongly contested.
Mr Chidawu made a spirited effort to prevent the sale of the attached property when he applied for a stay of execution of the court order to enable him defend the action before paying up.
He also wanted the Deputy Sheriff restrained from removing any of his companies’ property which was attached in terms of the writs of execution pending the finalisation of the present case.
But Justice Mathonsi would have none of it describing the application as “a wonderful laboratory for futile intellectual energy . . .”
He dismissed the application and ordered Mr Chidawu to pay the legal costs of the litigation.
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