A SAUDI Arabian company and five Saudi investors have for the second time withdrawn a multimillion-dollar lawsuit that they filed in the Windhoek High Court against British businessman and farm owner Harvey Boulter.
The six plaintiffs’ case against Boulter and his company Porton Managers was removed from the court roll in an order given by judge Thomas Masuku last week, after the court was informed that the plaintiffs have withdrawn their application against Boulter and his company.
In the withdrawn case, a Saudi Arabian company, Tabarak Trading and Contracting, and five residents of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were asking the High Court to declare that a judgement which a Dubai court granted in their favour against Boulter and Porton Managers in July 2020 is enforceable in Namibia.
In terms of the judgement, Boulter and Porton Managers were ordered to pay about 2,44 million British pounds (the equivalent of about N$59 million at the current exchange rate) to Tabarak Trading and Contracting and five other claimants who sued Boulter and his company.
Tabarak Trading and Contracting and the five other claimants alleged that Boulter misrepresented to them in 2010 that two companies in his Porton Group of Companies, named Enigma Diego and Communication Security Group, were highly profitable, and that as a result of the alleged misrepresentations they invested money in his companies by buying shares in them.
It was further alleged that Boulter took advantage of the money invested in his companies by transferring it to a bank account through a British law firm, and that he issued share certificates to the investors which turned out to be fictitious.
The Dubai court granted a default judgement against Boulter and Porton Managers in their absence.
The application against Boulter and Porton Managers in the Windhoek High Court was the second attempt made by the Saudi Arabian company and its five co-applicants to have the Dubai court’s order enforced in Namibia.
The first attempt ended in March last year, when an application filed by the six applicants in December 2021 was withdrawn.
The second application against Boulter and Porton Managers was filed at the High Court in October last year.
Boulter has said, in an affidavit also filed at the court, that after the first application was withdrawn the six applicants were not allowed to again launch legal action based on the same facts without getting the court’s permission first.
He also said the Dubai court judgement that the applicants wanted to enforce in Namibia was not translated from Arabic into English in terms of the High Court’s rules and was not authenticated either.
Boulter added that court documents informing him of legal proceedings in Dubai against him and his company were never served on him before a judgement was granted in his absence and without his knowledge.
“On that basis alone the judgement cannot be enforced,” Boulter stated.
He also claimed “there is, in law, actually no judgement against me as far as Namibian judicial standards are concerned”.
In the same affidavit, Boulter denied allegations that he had made fraudulent misrepresentations to investors.
Boulter (53), who owns a farm in the Outjo district, is currently facing four criminal charges – including a count of murder – in the Windhoek High Court in connection with a shooting incident in which a farm manager employed by him was fatally wounded near the end of February 2021. Boulter has said the shooting at his farm, during which he was also shot in his left hand, happened accidentally.
He was granted bail in an amount of N$500 000 in that case in July 2021.
