The Supreme Court reprimanded the High Court for its poorly informed ruling in a property dispute related to a sister company of Access Real Estate (ARE) even as it remanded the case back to it.
The decision made on May 19, 2015 was based on a petition by Laura Trade & Industry, ARE’s sister company, which contested the High Court’s decision in favour of Gabby Investment to unlawfully freeze a property under its ownership for Gabby to execute an earlier ruling with ARE. The ruling was for ARE to pay 33.18 million Br, which Gabby claims it was owed for two projects, Laura and Mereafe . Gabby terminated its contract with ARE for these projects and took the case to court.
One of these projects was taking place on a land possessed by Laura Trade & Industry. Gabby petitioned to have the High Court rule to freeze ARE’s property, which rested on a 2,900sqm plot of land; Laura claimed the targeted property was different from the one Gabby had asked to be frozen, adding that the affected property was not among those disputed by ARE and Gabby rather its own property.
The High Court rejected the petition noting the property it made a decision on was included in Gabby’s petition and that Laura had a chance to make its claim before the decision was made, but it did not do so.
The properties are located in Bole District, and Laura argues that the applicant, Gabby, had asked for the court to verify which of the two properties was involved in the dispute with ARE.
At the same time, Gabby’s defence was that Laura’s petition to invalidate the decision had passed the period of limitation, and that Laura’s claim should have come earlier when it was asked to react.
The Supreme Court affirmed that Gabby was not certain whether the frozen property was the disputed one, and blamed the High Court for passing a ruling without making a clarification. The Supreme Court also criticised the High Court saying that Laura could make a petition at any time when it realised the error, as courts freeze properties to prevent any transfer before execution.
The Supreme Court ordered the High Court to render another judgement after identifying the property in the dispute.
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