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No! says Ayob
12/05/2005 22:59 - (SA)
Yvonne Beyers, Beeld
Johannesburg - Former president Nelson Mandela's confidant of about 30 years is
refusing to return his name and rights voluntarily.
Ismail Ayob, the former president's legal adviser during the struggle years,
and Ayob's business partner, Ross Calder, indicated on Thursday that they would oppose Madiba's application to declare the agreement according to which
he possibly signed away his name and the copyright to his works null and void.
Beeld learnt on good authority that Ayob had lodged a "notice of intent to
oppose [the application]" with the Johannesburg High Court. Mandela's legal
team was still unaware of this development by late Thursday afternoon.
Advocate Bally Chuene, for Mandela, said Calder, who markets and sells
Mandela's artworks, indicated that he, too, would be opposing the former
president's application in court.
"We will only know within four working days from today (Friday) what his
full answer is. "Only then will be we know on which grounds he is opposing
the application," Chuene said.
He confirmed that the decision by Calder and Ayob to oppose the application
meant that the two would definitely be taking Mandela on in court later this
month.
Advocate George Bizos SC, Mandela's friend and a "witness" in the case, said
if the alleged agreement in which Mandela might have unwittingly transferred
his name and rights to Ayob's company, Tinancier Investment Holdings, is
found by the court to be "invalid or declared null and void", it would mean
that "everything Calder did [without Mandela's knowledge] would have been
unauthorised".
He said "circumstances will determine" whether Mandela would then bring a
civil claim against Calder and Ayob for the revenue on the sales of the
artworks.
Bizos said Mandela's legal team "doesn't want to speculate" whether it would
then be possible to charge Ayob and Calder with fraud, but said "there may
be others who would threaten to institute criminal proceedings".
The decision by Ayob and Calder to oppose the application means in effect
that they are refusing to heed Mandela's request to summarily terminate the
marketing, distribution and sales of the artworks.
It also means that they do not want to disclose the total revenue on the
sales of Madiba's artworks and their company's financial statements to the
former president and that Ayob and his wife, Zamilia, will not resign
voluntarily from their positions as trustees of the Mandela Trust, the
Nelson Mandela Trust and the NRM Family Trust.
On Thursday, neither Ayob nor Calder reacted to Beeld's telephone or e-mail
messages.
The legal firm Spoor & Fisher's marketing chief, Adri Malan, said they would no longer be acting on behalf of Ayob since "he doesn't regard this as a
copyright case".
- Beeld
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