- Acting Judge Perlene Bramdhew granted an order on Wednesday preventing a journalist from exposing claims against a South African solar panel manufacturer ARTSolar.
- Journalist Bongani Hans of Independent Newspapers had asked ARTSolar about claims made by a Durban businessman that the company said its panels were locally made when in fact they were imported from China.
- The company asked for an urgent interdict to prevent publication which was granted after a hearing at which Hans was not present or represented.
An acting High Court judge has stopped a journalist exposing allegations that a Durban solar panel company misled a client.
Journalist Bongani Hans of Independent Newspapers was not present in court, or legally represented, but Acting Judge Perlene Bramdhew, in the KZN High Court, granted an order stopping him from publishing any article involving the allegations.
Lawyers for ARTsolar Pty Ltd rushed to court this week with an urgent application – giving the journalist and others only two days’ notice – to secure the interim interdict. ARTsolar’s urgent application – which was argued in open court on Wednesday – was sparked by Hans sending a list of questions to the company based on allegations made by Brett Latimer, the owner of Oxford supermarkets, and two former employees of ARTsolar, one of whom now works for Latimer.
Latimer had alleged that the company told him the panels he bought from ARTsolar were locally made when in fact they were imported from China. According to the court papers, Hans was sent the urgent application via his email address. A source told GroundUp that lawyers for ARTsolar told the judge they had contacted Hans that morning. He had confirmed receiving the email and had said he needed to speak to his editor.
ARTsolar also sought, and secured from Judge Bramdhew, interim interdicts against Latimer, Kandace Singh and Shalendra Hansraj, in terms of which they cannot make written or verbal defamatory statements that ARTsolar “conducts business unethically or dishonestly”, that the company said that its solar panels were being manufactured locally when they were being manufactured in China, and that it falsely inflated prices.
The order reads: “the aforesaid interdict will apply irrespective of to whom the said defamatory allegations are made but in the case of [Latimer, Singh and Hansraj], will extend specifically to members of the Press, Bongani Hans, the Independent Newspaper Group, the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC), the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC) and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC).”
Though Hans was not present or represented, GroundUp was told that Advocate Anand Choudree (for the other respondents), cited various authorities in which media gagging orders had been criticised by other courts and submitted that it was unfair to expect the journalist to respond within such a short time frame.
However, Judge Bramdhew granted the interdict stopping him from publishing Latimer’s allegations. The return date for the application is 29 July.
Latimer – in his opposing affidavit which forms part of the public court record – insists that he was duped into believing that ARTsolar was the only South African manufacturer of solar panels, a claim which had resulted in it getting funding from the IDC and which had persuaded him to buy local, even though it was more expensive. However, he said, when he inspected the installed solar panels he noticed the name Einnova Solarline on them. Einnova Solarline Energy Corporation operated out of China.
As further proof he attached to the court papers a bill of lading showing that 22 packages of solar modules were shipped from Shanghai on 19 May 2023 by Einnova to ARTsolar. Each package contained 31 solar panels.
“The fact that the IDC partnered with ARTsolar on the project by providing Capex and working capital funding of R96.3-million to manufacturer modules locally gave me a great feeling of pride to be part of a local contribution towards sustainable growth, job creation and advancing Black Economic Empowerment initiatives and objectives,” Latimer said.
“I have been deceived and duped. I had innocently and in good faith aided and abetted a company to enjoy an unfair advantage over its competitors that import solar panels and borrow funding from financial institutions at high interest rates, whereas ARTsolar obtained finance at preferential rates from the IDC,” he said.
In a separate affidavit, Hansraj, who worked for ARTsolar until late December 2023 when he was apparently dismissed, said the company was importing up to 95% of solar panels from China “contrary to its marketing material, company overviews and sales pitches”.
In his affidavit, ARTsolar director Bebinchand Seevnarayan said: “The contract between the parties does not contain any contractual undertaking or representation as to where the panels are manufactured. They are described by their functionality and specifications and that was exactly what we undertook to supply and install.”
He says further: “I can categorically say that the solar panels supplied and installed are of the highest quality and pass all technical minimum specifications and requirements. It is untrue that Latimer was ever told that the panels were manufactured locally. It is true that some are imported from China, but there are no grounds to suggest that Latimer was ever misled.”
He claimed the allegations were malicious and as a result of labour disputes between the company, Singh and Hansraj who now worked for Latimer.
“Information available to us shows that Hansraj has removed confidential information from the company which he retained when he moved to his new employment. It appears that some of this information is being used by the respondents as part of their slandering of the company.”
He said earlier this month, the company’s lawyers received an email from Hans “which contained a rendition of what Hans says the respondents told him, which essentially amounts to allegations of unethical and dishonest business practices and fraud”.
Hans, he said, was the “voice piece for the [respondents’] defamatory allegations” and clearly intended to publish an article including the fact that Latimer had lodged a criminal case against the company and had reported it to the IDC and DTIC.
“The reason why they are taking these matters to the press is because of the (labour) disputes with Singh and Hansraj. The entire smear campaign is deliberate and malicious and false.”
He said if the untrue and defamatory allegations went unchecked, they would tarnish the reputation of the company in the industry. “The applicant is in urgent need of an interdict to stop the publication before it happens. It is accordingly urgent that the respondents be interdicted from feeding Hans and others further false information.
Author: Tania Broughton
This article was originally published by GroundUp and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. It is republished with permission. Link to the original article HERE
