A local company’s application seeking to place Engen Petroleum Zimbabwe under provisional judicial management recently hit a snag after the High Court dismissed the application for want of prosecution.
BY CHARLES LAITON
High Court judge Justice Garainesu Mawadze granted the order on November 11 this year after the company, Total Solutions, failed to pursue the matter further.
“The application for an order for provisional judicial management which was made by the first respondent (Total Solutions) . . . be and is hereby dismissed for want of prosecution,” Justice Mawadze ruled, while slapping Total Solutions with costs of suit.
According to the court papers, sometime in August this year, Total Solutions instituted legal proceedings against Engen Petroleum seeking to have the latter placed under provisional judicial management, but the reasons behind the application were not made clear.
In terms of the Companies Act, a company may be placed under judicial management for mismanagement or if for any other cause the company is probably unable to pay its debts and has not become, or is prevented from becoming, a successful concern.
But, in the case of Engen Petroleum, the application for it to be placed under provisional judicial management was opposed following the filing of notice of opposition and an opposing affidavit by its managing director Cremion Mapfumba on August 31 this year.
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After receiving the notice of opposition, Total Solutions is said to have failed to file an answering affidavit nor taken steps to set the matter down for hearing, prompting Engen Petroleum to file an application seeking the dismissal of the matter.
“The respondent (Total Solutions) has clearly shown a disinclination to pursue the matter. The application was filed against a background in which there had been a sale in execution of the applicant’s property (and) shortly after having filed the application, the respondent’s legal practitioners wrote to the Sheriff advising them that they had made the application and presumably requesting the Sheriff not to confirm the sale on that basis,” Mapfumba said.
