.
A file picture of a Ferrari F430 Spyder. A similar car is the object of a high court case in which two Durban businessmen are fighting over the ownership of the vehicle.
Tania Broughton
tania.broughton@inl.co.za
TWO Durban business tycoons are embroiled in a Durban High Court battle over who is the real owner of a sleek Ferrari.
The court action was initiated by attorney and businessman Keith Mothilall, who claimed that Rodney Hyman of Hyman cars had illegally sold the car – which he bought in December 2008 for R3.45 million – to Gonaseelan Govindsamy Nair, the owner of Coastal Steel Supplies.
He secured an interim order, stopping Nair from driving the Ferrari F430 Spyder and giving him until later this month to explain why he should not return the car to Mothilall.
Nair launched an urgent counter-application yesterday, accusing Mothilall of not telling the truth about the matter – including that Hyman is his uncle, whose company is now in liquidation.
Mothilall claims that while he gave the car to Hyman to sell in June 2010, he had never authorised any sale of the vehicle and had never received any money for it.
“Hyman continuously advised me that due to the high value of the car, various buyers’ finance applications were declined and that no deals were imminent.”
In April this year he heard that Hyman had left the country hastily after selling all his assets. Only then did he discover that the Ferrari had been sold to Nair in August 2010.
“I do not even know for what price… I certainly never received anything. I did not sign any change of ownership forms,” he said.
Nair, however, says this is unlikely.
He says Hyman told him that the car was his and was for sale for R2.5m.
He paid a deposit of R500 000 and financed the balance through Standard Bank.
In April this year he was contacted by the police, who told him that Mothilall had laid a charge of theft against Hyman regarding the car.
Having “nothing to hide”, Nair said he made an affidavit regarding how he came to have the vehicle – facts not disclosed by Mothilall when seeking urgent relief in an application brought to the court.
At the time of making the affidavit, he had spoken to Rodney Hyman’s father, Freddie, who said the family would bring an application against Mothilall for the “ridiculous accusations” he was making about them.
Nair said it was unlikely that Mothilall would have given Hyman the car for 10 months without authority to sell it.
And he has put up documents which allegedly show that Mothilall signed on the deal and received the R500 000 deposit.
He says the police have another document showing the lawyer approved the ownership transfer.
Nair said Hyman’s business was now in liquidation and a “Keith Sewlall” was listed as an unsecured creditor for R1.5m.
He said Mothilall sometimes used the surname Sewlall.
Nair, a “man of means” who only uses the Ferrari at weekends, has agreed that pending the final resolution of the matter, he will not clock up more than 1 000km a month in the car.
In terms of an order taken by consent yesterday, and agreed to by Judge Rashid Vahed, the interim rule preventing Nair from driving the car has been set aside and the case adjourned.
