Spar executives accused of fraud, perjury
The CEO, chair and head of Spar’s largest division have been accused of fraud and perjury before two High Courts by a retailer, who filed a criminal complaint at a Pretoria police station yesterday.
Chris Giannacopoulos is one of three brothers who, through a network of 13 companies, owns 45 Spar grocery and bottle stores, BusinessLIVE reports.
The trio has been locked in many court battles with Spar, which acts as a wholesaler, since 2019 when it attempted to take control of their then 41 stores.
Giannacopoulus opened the complaint at the Moot police station in Pretoria with rights group AfriForum’s support.
The complaint is against CEO Brett Botten, former CEO and current chair Graham O’Connor and MD of the Spar South Rand, the biggest division, Desmond Borrageiro.
In short, it is alleged in previous legal skirmishes the three Spar executives stated in court papers that the Giannacopoulos brothers owed Spar just more than R171m.
In January 2020, Spar issued summons against the brothers’ companies for the debt. However, unbeknown to the trio at the time the debt had allegedly been sold by Spar to WesBank, a division of FNB.
The brothers have accused the three Spar executives of purposely misrepresenting the facts before the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) in 2019 and the KZN High Court (Durban) in 2020, with Chris Giannacopoulus saying the Spar executives knew the debt had been sold to WesBank at a discount, and was no longer owed to Spar, as claimed.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
