On Monday the Supreme Court will begin a hearing which will decide whether Michael Ashcroft's E-com can legally own more than 25% of BTL. But, if Ashcroft has his way, there won't be any case. The strategy became clear today in an advertisement in the Amandala which says that E-com only wants to buy 10% of BTL's shareholdings, not 12.5%. That 10% would bring E-com's Holdings to 25%, within the legal, or arguable, requirement of the articles; whereas the 12.5% would take it over that limit and leave approval of the sale up to the court.
Paring down the purchase by those 2.5 percentage points, worth about US$2 million, is a clever strategy. But it is embarked upon at the cost of the credibility of the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and the Contractor General which, depending on where you stand, is either a considerable cost or not much at all. That's because the Prime Minister said it would be 12.5% in the National Assembly, the Attorney General swore to that same 12.5% in an affidavit before the court and the Contractor General certified it in a summary of the transaction.
But all that's in the wind because E-com is now downsizing its demands in the hope of fitting Ashcroft's stout ambitions through the slender eye of the BTL needle. Of course, Ashcroft still has to account for his various other BTL holdings, amounting to about 8%, invested in other companies such as Mercury, and Carlisle which presented themselves to the court as Ashcroft related companies in an earlier hearing.
