Is that right..! Well I'm just TOLATE ... TO me a bit to work it REALLY OUT, if you haven't had the chance to READ IT..!!!!! Dathcom, managed by AVZ’s technical director Graeme Johnston, subsequently lodged the signed transfer documents with the registrar of the RCCM – the official public share register in the DRC. A new share certificate showing AVZ’s 75 per cent holding was produced … and that’s when things started to get a little crazy.
In an almost comical move, Cong dumped the US$20m back into AVZ’s bank account. AVZ then sent it back again, but this time the money was lodged in a lawyer’s escrow account (pursuant to a court order obtained by AVZ) and Cong was told to go get it – which he didn’t.Cong then attempted to claim the new share certificate issued by the RCCM was a forgery and perhaps inexplicably, managed to convince a criminal court in the DRC of his claim.
Perhaps even more inexplicably, the court found in favour of Cong and Dathomir and sentenced Johnston and the clerk responsible for creating new share certificates to three years’ jail and one year in jail, respectively – although happily, the clerk had his jail term suspended.And the sting in the tail … believe it or not … was a US$50 million (AU$76.26 million) fine payable by Dathcom, presumably to Cong.
The fine was later reduced to US$25 million (AU$38.13 million) on appeal and then put on hold pending a further appeal by AVZ to the Supreme Court.The court also ordered the new share certificate showing AVZ’s 75 per cent shareholding to be destroyed. Thankfully, Johnston had already hightailed it back to Perth because of COVID and presumably has no intention of ever returning to the DRC.
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AVZ Price at posting:
78.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
