Another Gupta-owned company has lost its legal challenge to a Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) order, forcing it to pay nearly R89m of a R123m loan it received from the Bank of Baroda.

Annex Distribution’s bid was to try to overturn the judgment of the same court, forcing it to pay back the money.

A Cape Argus report says the legal battle between the sister company of the family’s Sahara Computers started when it borrowed R123m from India's international bank.

Annex Distribution’s failure to pay led to the bank launching a bid to liquidate the company, which was granted in May 2020.

Judge Mandla Mbongwe said that since May 2020 both parties had tried unsuccessfully to resolve the matter until they agreed that another Gupta company, Confident Concepts, be substituted as the Bank of Baroda’s debtor, and the deal was struck in July 2020.

Last year, the High Court found that Confident Concepts had failed to fulfil the conditions set out for it to take over the debt.

Mbongwe later found there was no valid substitution of Annex Distribution as a debtor of the Bank of Baroda flowing from the agreement, which had, in any case, lapsed due to non-fulfilment of the conditions. The Guptas later appealed the ruling, but Mbongwe was unconvinced.

He found that a lapsed agreement could not beget a valid substitution of debtor and that Annex Distribution remained indebted to the Bank of Baroda in the circumstances.

‘I find, in the present matter, that the appeal has no reasonable prospect of success; that there are no compelling circumstances for the appeal to be heard and, finally, that there are no conflicting judgments with regard to the finding that an agreement containing conditions precedent becomes void ab initio where there has been none fulfilment of conditions precedent and waiver of non-compliance has neither been alleged nor established. Leave to appeal is, consequently, refused,’ Mbongwe said.

Full Cape Argus report