The High Court in Pretoria has ruled that the Trillian Capital Partners, owned, among others, by Gupta brothers of India, who ruled the roost in the earlier regime of Jacob Zuma in South Africa, to pay back Eskom, the power utility company in the public sector in South Africa, R595m. The court said in the order issued yesterday that the payments from the state-owned power utility to Trillian were “unlawful and invalid”.
Facts of the case
McKinsey, the US based company was implicated in a corrupt dealing between Eskom, the debt ridden South African power utility and the Gupta owned consultancy firm Trillian. The money was unlawfully paid out to the companies in 2016 and 2017. Eskom was warned two years ago that its contract with McKinsey was against the National Treasury instruction to cut costs. Eskom, based on these warnings, conducted investigations into the payments made to both the companies and found payments were illegal. It urgedfor setting aside these unlawful decisions and recovery of the money paid in its entirety. It made its intention clear that it is in the public interest to do everything to claw back all the fees which were unlawfully paid.
Eskom says that it is studying the judgment and will follow due process for the recovery of funds from Trillian. In July last year, McKinsey agreed to pay back R902-million to Eskom, though it has argued that it did not do anything that was illegal. However, Trillian opposed Eskom’s application in court and claimed that it earned its due amount through bank pay outs by providing extensive services to the utility.
Eskom, which first brought its application to the court in March last year, implicated that the former board members and executives amassed R1.6-billion in unlawful payments being made to the two companies. Eskom argued that Trillian — established by Eric Wood and Gupta lieutenant Salim Essa — benefited from unlawful and corrupt dealings. Trillian countered that the case for corruption was “flimsy at best” and based on disputed facts. Trillian argued that allegations of corruption against it was disputed and cannot be resolved without cross-examination.
The high court judgment opposed this view by saying that the interest of justice would not only be frustrated by the non-admission of the evidence on the basis that such evidence is hearsay, but this rejection of such evidence would benefit the wrong-doers. The judgment also supports the view that a corrupt relationship existed between Essa and former senior Eskom officials, including Anoj Singh and Matshela Koko. The reaction of Gupta brothers have to be ascertained. They are presently in India in connection with marriages of two brothers’ sons.
