{"id":20489,"date":"2013-06-18T16:29:30","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T14:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/franchisee-cries-foul-on-woolworths-ruling\/"},"modified":"2013-06-18T16:29:30","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T14:29:30","slug":"franchisee-cries-foul-on-woolworths-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/franchisee-cries-foul-on-woolworths-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Franchisee cries foul on Woolworths ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        \t                                <!-- Main Editorial Image --><br \/>\n                    \t\t\t      \t\t\t                                      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/144a3_2647184436.jpg\" alt=\"Woolworths_dec 10\" title=\"\" class=\"pics\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"captions_credit_article\">Independent Newspapers<\/p>\n<p class=\"captions\">Woolworths. Photo by Simphiwe Mbokazi<\/p>\n<p class=\"captions\">\n<p class=\"related_articles\">Related Stories<\/p>\n<ul class=\"menu_tab_lists_related\">\n<li><a class=\"related_articles\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za:80\/business\/business-news\/woolworths-stock-leads-retail-slip-on-inflation-risk-1.1528605\">Woolworths: Stock leads retail slip on inflation risk<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--PSTYLE=WT Web Text--><\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">North Coast businessman Haresh Ouderajh says a court judgment against him should be nullified because the presiding acting judge, who is also a practising advocate, had acted against him in another matter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">In an urgent court application recently, Ouderajh said Acting Judge Anton de Beer, who presided over his case against Woolworths, had allegedly taken on a case against him while the judgment was outstanding. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">He said he wanted to apply for leave to appeal against the judgment \u2013 which found against him \u2013 but he wanted another judge to hear it because there might be \u201creasonable perception, suspicion or apprehension of bias\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cSenior counsel has expressed the view to my attorney that the judgment of Acting Justice (Anton) de Beer is a nullity by reason of this turn of events,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Ouderajh made these allegations in his recent urgent interdict application before Judge Fikile Mokgohloa in the Durban High Court in which he successfully restrained Woolworths from stopping him from trading at his franchise in KwaDukuza pending his intended application for leave to appeal against Judge de Beer\u2019s judgment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">The dispute came before Judge de Beer in April when Ouderajh \u2013 through his company, Dula Investments \u2013 accused Woolworths of trying to bully him into shutting down the KwaDukuza shop, saying he was entitled to a five-year extension on his 10-year franchise agreement. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Woolworths said it would not extend the lease because of operational breaches to the contract. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">In a judgment delivered on May 8, Judge de Beer found against Ouderajh, saying Woolworths should not be contractually \u201cshackled\u201d to him. He also referred to Ouderajh\u2019s conduct in his dealing with Woolworths officials and said the principles of good faith and \u201cubuntu\u201d, to which Ouderajh laid claim, were a two-way street. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">In his affidavit in the interdict application before Judge Mokgohloa, Ouderajh said following the De Beer judgment, Woolworths had given him until the beginning of June to \u201cwind down\u201d and shut up shop. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">He had then discovered an \u201cunusual and disturbing\u201d event, in that \u201cAdvocate de Beer SC\u201d had accepted a brief to act against him in another, separate civil matter in the KwaDukuza Magistrate\u2019s Court on May 6, 2013. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">He now wanted the judgment nullified and believed he should be allowed to continue trading in the meantime. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">In an interview with The Mercury last week, Ouderajh said the parties had agreed that the case should start afresh. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cWe approached the judge president and obtained a new date in September. The case will be argued again on the present papers before a new judge,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Woolworths said, however, it had not yet made a decision on whether it would agree to the setting aside of the De Beer judgment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cWe are in consultation with our legal team. In principle, however, our view remains that Dula Investments did not fully meet the obligations of the franchise agreement.\u201d &#8211; The Mercury <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Independent Newspapers Woolworths. Photo by Simphiwe Mbokazi Related Stories Woolworths: Stock leads retail slip on inflation risk North Coast businessman Haresh Ouderajh says a court judgment against him should be nullified because the presiding acting judge, who is also a practising advocate, had acted against him in another matter. In an urgent court application recently, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-20489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}