JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – JSE-listed Petmin on Wednesday said its Tendele Coal Mining subsidiary’s litigation against a former customer, including the High Court action, was still ongoing.
Tendele Coal Mining is involved in legal proceedings with one of its former customers pertaining to disputes arising from a supply-of-discard agreement.
In September 2015, Tendele instituted proceedings in the High Court in terms of which it sought declaratory relief whereby the contract with the customer would be void or voidable, premised on the grounds of fraud, bribery and corruption.
An arbitration process was also under way at the time, but Tendele withdrew from that in December 2015.
Notwithstanding Tendele's withdrawal from the arbitration proceedings and the institution of the High Court action, the arbitration proceedings continued to finality at the insistence of the customer on an uncontested basis and the arbitrator delivered an adverse award against Tendele.
The customer was notified that Tendele would oppose any attempt to have the arbitration award made an order of court.
On February 4, 2016, Tendele was notified that the customer had applied to the High Court to make the arbitration award an order of the court. Tendele opposed the enforcement application and brought a counter application.
On May 17, this year, Tendele received a notice from the customer in which the customer withdrew its enforcement application and tendered Tendele’s costs on a party-to-party scale.
The court action lodged by Tendele will, however, still proceed.