- A day after the Supreme Court of Appeal ordered that the Gupta-owned Shiva Uranium mine must recognise its original business rescue practitioner, it made a similar ruling with two other businesses owned by the family
- Islandsite Investments One Hundred and Eighty and Confident Concept are owned by the three Gupta brothers and Chetali Gupta, the wife of Atul Gupta.
- Both businesses went into rescue around the same time in February 2018 after South African banks closed the accounts of the Guptas
Two more Gupta-owned companies have to take back their original business rescue practitioners (BRPs) whether they agree with the way they are supervising the businesses undergoing the rescue process or not.
On Wednesday, a day after the Gupta-owned Shiva Uranium mine was ordered to recognize its original rescue practitioners as the only valid people to oversee the process, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) made a similar ruling again, this time about the disgraced family's insurance and property companies.
In the Wednesday ruling, the SCA ruled on a matter brought by the BRPs of Islandsite Investments One Hundred and Eighty (Islandsite) and Confident Concept, two companies owned by the three Gupta brothers and Chetali Gupta, the wife of Atul Gupta.
According to its short business profile on Bloomberg, Islandsite is in the business of insurance underwriting but it also owned properties. Confident Concept, on the other hand, held a large portfolio of the Gupta properties and also owns several portions of the farm Brakfontein, near Delmas in Mpumalanga, as News24 previously reported.
The two businesses went into business rescue around the same time in February 2018 after South African banks closed the accounts of the Guptas. Six other companies in the Oakbay Group were placed under business rescue at the same time, including Shiva Uranium.
But disputes arose between the BRPs and Atul Gupta's wife and other employees in the Oakbay Group. In November 2018 she applied to have them removed from the office. The BRPs challenged their dismissal at the SCA which analysed the allegations by the Gupta employee whose complaints led to Atul's wife applying for the BRPs' removal.
In the judgment, the SCA said that these allegations were not proven and none of them provided grounds for the removal of the BRPs, except for one. It said none of the grounds that the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria relied on to remove the BRPs were established on the facts. As a result, none of them provided grounds for their removal.
The BRPs appeal was upheld with costs.