COURT THROWS OUT ATLAS MARA AND OTHERS APPLICATION AGAINST ZPC
THE Ndola High Court has thrown out an application by Atlas Mara and four others asking it to strike out the case in which Zambezi Portland Cement Limited sued them for transferring its money to Atlas Mara’s account as an investment and was never returned.
In April 2015 Zambezi Portland Cement limited sued Atlas Mara(African Banking Corporation), Finance Bank Zambia limited, Finsbury Investments limited, Peter Kanaganayam and Rajan Mathani seeking an order of mandatory injunction directing Atlas Mara to transfer money from its Bank account to its accounts at Alliance Bank in Ndola.
It was seeking a declaration that the defendant as a fiducial institution is under a fiduciary duty to honor Cheques duly issued on Zambezi Portland’s account.
Zambezi Portland also sought damages for loss of business for Atlas Mara’s failure to honor its cheques.
The defendants made an application to strike out the statement of claim and to dismiss the action because the facts in the statement of claim do not disclose a reasonable cause of action.
Zambezi Portland however opposed the application by the defendants.
In his ruling Judge Daniel Musonda said that that the mere fact that the case is week or unlikely to succeed is not a ground on which it can be struck out and the defendants’ application cannot be sustained.
He said there is a reasonable cause of action in Zambezi Portland’s statement of claim.
“I accordingly dismiss the application with costs in the cause and also direct that the matter comes up for status conference on Wednesday December 7,2022 at 08:45 hours,” said Judge Musonda.
During the era when Mahtani was in charge of the ZPC K4m transferred to Leasing Finance Company as an investment money which was never returned