No right to airport contract for Menzies, judge says

The airport services company Menzies Aviation (Namibia) has no right to claim that the contract for the provision of ground handling services at Hosea Kutako International Airport should be given to it, a judge has stated in a judgement delivered in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.

Judge Shafimana Ueitele made the remark in a judgement in which he dismissed Menzies’ latest urgent application against the Namibia Airports Company (NAC) and airport services competitor Paragon Investment Holdings.

Menzies was asking the court to order that it may return to the premises at Hosea Kutako International Airport from which the NAC evicted it on 19 August.

The urgent application heard by Ueitele was filed only hours after a previous urgent application by Menzies was dismissed by judge Hannelie Prinsloo in the High Court on 1 September.

In the case before Prinsloo, Menzies was asking the court to issue an order directing the NAC, Paragon Investment Holdings, the deputy sheriff of the High Court for the district of Windhoek, the Namibian Civil Aviation Authority and the Namibian Police to restore to Menzies possession of areas it had rented at Hosea Kutako International Airport.

Ueitele noted in his judgement that Menzies has filed several applications in the High Court and appeals to the Supreme Court in an attempt to hold on to a contract to provide ground handling services at the airport.

However, Menzies’ agreement with the NAC for the provision of ground handling services at the airport concluded at the end of 2021, and Menzies has no right to claim that the ground handling services contract must be given to it, Ueitele said in his judgement.

The NAC was granted a court order for the eviction of Menzies from the airport near the end of June last year.

An appeal by Menzies against that judgement was dismissed by the Supreme Court in June this year.

Still refusing to vacate the airport after the delivery of the Supreme Court’s judgement, Menzies continued to battle the NAC and Paragon in a flurry of applications in the High Court in an effort to continue to provide ground handling services at the airport. In the meantime, a case in which Menzies is asking the court to review the NAC’s decision to award the ground handling services contract to a joint venture between Paragon and Ethiopian Airlines is scheduled to be heard in the High Court at the start of December.

Ueitele said in his judgement yesterday that the NAC has shown it would suffer irreparable financial harm if the court allowed Menzies to return to the airport to continue to provide the ground handling services that have been taken over by Paragon.

He also remarked that the NAC and Paragon “have been harassed on no less than eight occasions” by Menzies in various legal proceedings.

The case before him was one that called out for the application of the rule that a dispute between parties should be finally litigated and decided once and for all, Ueitele said as well.

While he dismissed Menzies’ application and ordered the company to pay the legal costs of the NAC and Paragon, Ueitele also ordered that the NAC should, if still necessary, allow Menzies to get access to a warehouse at the airport where cargo handled by Menzies is being stored, and allow Menzies to deliver that cargo to the intended recipients.

Senior counsel Raymond Heathcote, assisted by John-Paul Jones, represented Menzies. The NAC was represented by senior counsel Timothy Bruinders, assisted by Unanisa Hengari, while Sisa Namandje and Taimi Iileka-Amupanda represented Paragon.