A legal fight has erupted over shares in a KZN stationery firm, amid allegations that an employee had been siphoning off millions to pay towards uMhlanga properties and a luxury vehicle. The Mercury reports the allegations came to light in a recent KZN High Court (Durban) judgment in an application brought by a businesswoman to demand that shareholders of Afro Pulse 46 (Pty) Limited – trading as Power Stationery – purchase her shareholding and loan account in the company.

In his judgment, acting Judge Joe Nxusani dismissed the case with costs and said he was ‘deeply concerned’ by the conduct of the businesswoman. The issue was that in June 2015, other shareholders had questioned the company’s high marketing and delivery expenses and a forensic investigator was appointed to investigate. At that time, the woman had become a shareholder after her husband relinquished his shares to her and had resigned as a director because of his conviction for tax evasion. The judgment states that the forensic investigation allegedly found that the man had been collaborating with two companies that had been issuing fraudulent invoices to the stationery firm.

Nxusani found that the woman’s case did not have a ring of truth in it, and that the impression he got was that she and her husband had second thoughts about their decision to transfer the shares when the company would not agree that there would be no criminal proceedings. He did not believe that the businesswoman had come to court with ‘clean hands’.

Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)