Controversial high-flying businessman Edwin Sodi could face possible arrest or a writ of execution to sell his assets as it appears that he failed to comply with a court order to pay his estranged wife, Nthateng Lerata, a divorce settlement of R24m.

Lerata Sodi was granted the order by the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) in July last year, reports City Press.

However, Sodi failed to honour the agreement.

On 24 July last year, Judge Johannes Strijdom gave Sodi 40 days to pay the money, warning that failure to do so would result in his assets being attached.

According to a source close to the couple, more than a year later, Sodi has failed to pay the stipulated amount despite an execution order and contempt of court hanging over his head. 

According to a notice of motion served on Sodi this month, he could also face up to 90 days of imprisonment.

Lerata Sodi had argued in her initial papers that she had been in a bitter legal dispute with Sodi since August 2016, when she had lodged her first court application.

That subsequently led to a 2023 court order instructing him to honour their settlement.

However, in Sodi's answering affidavit within the same period, he maintained that he was not in contempt of the court order, as the dispute between the former couple had been extinguished by the terms of the settlement agreement.

Sodi filed a notice of intention to defend the order granted to his estranged wife, denying that he had not honoured the monetary aspects of the settlement agreement.

In February this year, City Press reported that SARS was on Sodi's heels, threatening to seize his assets if he failed to pay more than R400m of alleged outstanding tax debt.

Full City Press report