The cross-examination of British Telecom SA (BTSA) managing director Bertrandt Delport continued on Tuesday morning in the Western Cape High Court, where AYO senior counsel Karrisha Pillay quizzed him on his previous testimony.
Delport was testifying on the third day in the case in which JSE-listed Ayo Technology Solutions (AYO) is defending itself against claims by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) that a shares subscription agreement worth R4.3 billion between both parties in 2017 was illegal.
Pillay took him back to the testimony on the 30% effective shareholding in BTSA that was held at the time by African Equity Empowerment Investment Ltd (AEEI) and which AYO would subscribe for upon AYO listing.
This shareholding, along with a partnership between the entities, was known as the “key strategic relationship with BT” and “alliance agreement” (the BT transaction), and internally at BTSA as “Project Zebra”.
In terms of the arrangement, and as per the pre-listing document and the BT Alliance, AYO would “take over and provide the BT transition services in South Africa, including the BT service desk, technical engineering capacity, maintenance and support services post the listing, and will provide such services to BT and its clients in South Africa and to companies within the AYO Technology Group”.
During the cross-examination, Pillay put it Delport that the pre-listing statement (PLS) constituted the sole final and binding offer by AYO to the PlC and that any representations made prior to the publication of the final PLS, whether oral or written, constituted part of the preliminary negotiations – to which he agreed.
As Pillay took him through both the draft and final PLS, she kept stopping to ask Delport if there was anything he considered misleading in his understanding of the document, to which he replied, “No”.
Delport, however, did have one caveat that he kept repeating, and this was that his concern with the PLS was that it was built on discussions between AYO and BTSA on Project Zebra, which made it sound like a foregone conclusion.
Pressing him on this point, Pillay asked: “But you accept that there was a strategic relationship with benefits to all parties?”
Delport: “If it materialised, then yes.”
Cross-examination continues in the afternoon.
Cape Argus