The Gupta-linked company Regiments Capital will now be liquidated after the SA Revenue Service (Sars) triumphed in the Constitutional Court.
Regiments Capital featured prominently in questionable tenders awarded to Gupta-linked companies. A Regiments subsidiary was also an advisor to the Transnet pension fund and is accused of abusing this position to the detriment of fund members. This included suspect trades in bonds meant to boost commissions, and questionable payments related to financial instruments that were linked to the corrupt deal in 2012 to supply Transnet with 1 064 locomotives.
Several parties with links to Regiments and directors of the company brought an application to set aside the company's liquidation. Sars – which is owed R690-million by Regiments - intervened and opposed the application, but the high court set aside the liquidation.
Sars and the liquidators then took this decision to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), which ruled in May that the high court decision be set aside.
The directors then approached the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal a decision of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).
But on Thursday, the court the Constitutional Court refused leave to appeal, finding that the matter did not fall within the jurisdiction of the court.
Sars Commissioner Edward Kieswetter said the decision of the Constitutional Court confirms that liquidation proceedings can now continue.
"Sars has taken the decision to pursue this matter to its logical conclusion because it believed that the company was acting to the disadvantage of its creditors. Non-compliant taxpayers need to take heed of SARS’s determination to make it hard and costly for those who wilfully and intentionally seek to use creative ways remain to abdicate their responsibility," he said in a statement.
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