CARMEL RICKARD: Murray & Roberts's win-win judgment
Zambian supreme court ruling in favour of Murray & Roberts a boost for confidence in that country
When a major project collapsed, construction firm Murray & Roberts could not have predicted that collecting on the debt it was owed would involve courts in two countries and become a test case before Zambia’s highest judges. The failed project, Lusaka Premier Health Clinic, near the international airport in Lusaka, was to provide a world-class hospital facility for the central African region. In 2011, after the scheme collapsed, the company won a judgment in the SA courts against the developers for more than US$6.5m, but the scheme’s backers could not satisfy the debt in SA. So Murray & Roberts then litigated in Zambia, where Lusaka Premier Health had assets. The plan was to obtain a judgment in the courts there, in terms of which it could sell a property owned by the debtor. The company obtained a default judgment authorising payment of the money due as well as possession and sale of certain land in Lusaka. But a high court judge refused to allow enforcement of the default judgment...
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