![]() ![]() (CVL has since been placed into provisional liquidation in Bermuda.) McGowan was a director of Centaur Ventures Limited (CVL), a Bermuda-registered Gupta affiliated company. These companies, Murray says, were allegedly “demonstrably applied” by certain individuals to carry on the business either recklessly or with gross negligence in order to perpetrate massive fraud and corruption. “As will appear from what follows, a particular central theme prevailed within Trillian and the entities associated with the Group, particularly also CMSA.” Liquidator Cloete Murray reckons not and sets out his reasons for rejecting Centaur’s view of being a creditor in a lengthy affidavit filed on September 2.Ĭentaur Mining has not taken issue with the facts put up in support of the 20(9) application and they are accordingly accepted as being true and correct, Murray says: McGowan says while expedient, the section 20(9) application brought by the liquidators was without legal foundation.Ĭentaur fears it would have to fight for its money as an unsecured creditor against the likes of Eskom, Transnet and the SA Revenue Service, with the taxman having a claim in excess of R400-million.īut, that is if indeed Centaur has a valid claim. At best it may have a claim against TMC in liquidation (but this is uncertain).” “What is clear is that CMSA (Centaur) cannot claim payment of the outstanding balance of the loan from TFA. TFA owes Centaur Mining just over R40-million, this being the balance of certain loans advanced to Trillian, McGowan says in an affidavit filed in early August.īy deeming TFA and Trillian Shared Services (TSS) not to be separate juristic entities, Centaur cannot enforce its rights under certain loan agreements, McGowan says. Centaur then hit back with a legal challenge of the 20 (9) order, in part because it claims that it is in fact owed money by one of the Trillian companies that landed up in liquidation as a result of it. They were on the verge of landing a default judgment when Centaur got wind of the claim that it is now defending. Within a few weeks of landing this order, liquidators slapped Centaur Mining with a R400-million voidable disposition claim. ![]() “Section 20 (9) legislates a statutory basis for piercing the corporate veil of otherwise separate and distinct legal entities,” court papers state. The order covered Trillian Capital Partners, Trillian Securities, Trillian Nominees, Shared Services, Trillian Property and Trillian Financial Advisory (TFA).Ĭourt papers do not refer to Trillian Holdings, the entity through which Essa previously held a majority stake in Trillian, in this regard. The 20 (9) application was backed by the report of a forensic accountant (used in legal proceedings that the SA Revenue Service brought against Trillian), who concluded that the business of the various Trillian companies was indistinguishable and effectively managed as one single economic entity. This allowed for a composite liquidation, insolvency process and administration on the basis that each one of the companies was insolvent and needed to be wound up as one single and indivisible operation. The liquidators obtained an order in terms of Section 20 (9) of the Companies Act to collapse several other Trillian companies into TMC in January 2021. Trillian Management Consulting (TMC), a subsidiary of Trillian Capital Partners, was liquidated at the instance of Eskom over its inability to repay the parastatal R595-million - ill-gotten gains - per a high court order handed down in June 2019. McGowan is also hoping to intervene in proceedings brought by Optimum’s business rescue practitioners, Kurt Knoop and Louis Klopper, to liquidate the Gupta flagship company, Oakbay Investments. ![]() He recently landed unconditional approval from South Africa’s Competition Commission for his Liberty Coal to take over Optimum. This highly damaging contention by liquidators does not bode well for the Dubai-based McGowan. “CVL, CMSA and Trillian were all and remain puppets in the hands of the Gupta protagonists.” “Seen in its simplest form, CVL was the source of the offshore Gupta funding that was required to supplement the proceeds of the ill-gotten Gupta revenue generated pursuant to their unlawful local commerce and to advance the Gupta empire locally expended through CVL’s SA representative, CMSA. Murray, in an affidavit filed at the High Court in Johannesburg, says that ultimately, “Gupta associate Centaur Ventures” funded Oakbay/Tegeta’s acquisition of OCM, the largest coal supplier to Eskom and Essa’s acquisition of Nkonki. Now liquidators Cloete Murray, Sivalutchmee Moodliar and Ndumiso Sibiya charge that Centaur Mining SA (CMSA) was a Gupta affiliate. ![]()
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