Durban – Former Tekkie Town executives plan to return to the Constitutional Court after the Supreme Court of Appeal rules in favour of retailer Pepkor.
The company’s founders, Braam Huyssteen,,Bernard Mostert, and three other ex-Tekkie Town management members, were issued with a restraint. Pepkor said yesterday that it welcomed the ruling.
In 2018, Pepskor said it obtained an urgent interdict from Judge Elizabeth Baartman for a restraint of trade, which order was taken on appeal by the previous owners and management of Tekkie Town.
“The decision by Judge Baartman that a specified range of footwear should be removed from the shelves of Mr Tekkie stores was now confirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeal,” Pepkor said.
The battle between the two parties has been going on since 2016 when the former Tekkie Town shareholders exchanged their shares for 43 million shares in Steinhoff, valued at R3.3 billion at the time.
However, the collapse of Steinhoff in December 2017 as a result of the accounting scandal meant the value of the shares suffered and this led to the former Tekkie Town shareholders claiming they were misled by Steinhoff and its former Chief executive, Markus Jooste.
“The Supreme Court of Appeal found that the order made by the lower court conveys with sufficient clarity what is required of the previous owners and management of Tekkie Town, namely not to be involved in any business like Mr Tekkie that offers for sale footwear that the Tekkie Town business offered for sale on October 1, 2016, or before. The practical result of this ruling is to confirm that Van Huyssteen and Mostert’s Mr Tekkie, which they started after selling Tekkie Town to Steinhoff and Markus Jooste, has to remove all the stock from the shop floor as stipulated by Judge Baartman in her ruling,” Pepkor said.
