Mulli loses challenge
The Commercial Division of the High Court has sustained an injunction obtained by a minority shareholder in National Bus Company Limited to stop moves by majority shareholder Leston Mulli.
On December 28 2012, the court granted an ex-parte injunction to a minority shareholder, Abraham Simama, restraining Mulli Brothers Limited (MBL), Leston Mulli and the bus company from transferring MBL shares to another company or removing the company’s membership from the bus company.
The bus company’s board had planned a board meeting which, among others, wanted to appoint a new board and float a proposal for a fresh audit report. This prompted Simama to seek a court order stopping the board’s move.
And during an inter-partes hearing of the injunction, Mulli, through his lawyer Kalekeni Kaphale, applied for removal of the injunction, whereas Simama, through his lawyer Patrick Mpaka, asked the court to sustain the injunction.
The court on January 16 this year ruled in favour of Simama, sustaining the injunction until determination of the matter or further order of the court.
Lawyer Alick Msowoya represented the bus company.
Simama sought the court’s intervention to remove the bus company’s main shareholder and chairperson Mulli following the way he conducted himself allegedly resulting in the firm being owed K267.2 million.
The bus company’s shareholders, structured under a Public Private Partnership (PPP), are as follows: MBL (68.52 percent), Simama (19.72 percent) and Malawi Government—representing taxpayers—11.76 percent.
A reconciliation audit the bus company board commissioned in July 2012 to investigate suspected irregular transactions at the bus company recommended that MBL pay back at least K267.2 million to the bus company.
