Legal Shield wins access to Namfisa documents

LEGAL assistance insurance company Legal Shield has won a second round in its High Court battle against a bid by the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority to have it placed under curatorship.

In a ruling on Thursday evening, Acting Judge Hosea Angula ordered Namfisa to allow Legal Shield to have copies of a host of documentation on Legal Shield that the company claimed Namfisa had in its possession. The ruling concluded an urgent application that Legal Shield had brought against Namfisa in the High Court in Windhoek, nine days after Namfisa had started the current round of high-stakes litigation against Legal Shield with an unannounced urgent application to have a curator appointed to take over the management of the insurance company.Legal Shield managed to stave off the immediate appointment of a curator, though.That application from Namfisa, as well as an application from Legal Shield in which it asks the High Court to declare that its ‘Winna Mariba’ television game show is not a contravention of the Short-term Insurance Act, is now scheduled to be heard in the High Court on November 11.Legal Shield, represented by Raymond Heathcote and senior counsel Dave Smuts at Thursday’s hearing, was asking for the documents in Namfisa’s possession to be disclosed to it in preparation of the November 11 hearing.Namfisa legal representative Patrick Kauta opposed the request.He argued that the documents that Legal Shield was demanding were either not relevant to the case or were not in Namfisa’s possession.Kauta charged that Legal Shield was on “a fishing expedition” by demanding to be given insight into an array of documents that it claimed might possibly aid it in the pending court showdown with Namfisa, but without actually knowing that these contained any relevant material.Amongst the documentation that Namfisa now has to disclose is material related to an investigation into Legal Shield’s business activities that it had asked auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers to carry out.Also to be disclosed is documentation related to Namfisa’s request to the High Court to have a former Sanlam Namibia Managing Director, Bob Meiring, appointed as a curator to take over the running of Legal Shield.At the heart of Namfisa’s application are claims that Legal Shield has not been doing business in compliance with the Short-term Insurance Act – which Legal Shield has denied.The ruling concluded an urgent application that Legal Shield had brought against Namfisa in the High Court in Windhoek, nine days after Namfisa had started the current round of high-stakes litigation against Legal Shield with an unannounced urgent application to have a curator appointed to take over the management of the insurance company.Legal Shield managed to stave off the immediate appointment of a curator, though.That application from Namfisa, as well as an application from Legal Shield in which it asks the High Court to declare that its ‘Winna Mariba’ television game show is not a contravention of the Short-term Insurance Act, is now scheduled to be heard in the High Court on November 11.Legal Shield, represented by Raymond Heathcote and senior counsel Dave Smuts at Thursday’s hearing, was asking for the documents in Namfisa’s possession to be disclosed to it in preparation of the November 11 hearing.Namfisa legal representative Patrick Kauta opposed the request.He argued that the documents that Legal Shield was demanding were either not relevant to the case or were not in Namfisa’s possession.Kauta charged that Legal Shield was on “a fishing expedition” by demanding to be given insight into an array of documents that it claimed might possibly aid it in the pending court showdown with Namfisa, but without actually knowing that these contained any relevant material.Amongst the documentation that Namfisa now has to disclose is material related to an investigation into Legal Shield’s business activities that it had asked auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers to carry out.Also to be disclosed is documentation related to Namfisa’s request to the High Court to have a former Sanlam Namibia Managing Director, Bob Meiring, appointed as a curator to take over the running of Legal Shield.At the heart of Namfisa’s application are claims that Legal Shield has not been doing business in compliance with the Short-term Insurance Act – which Legal Shield has denied.