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Report 73 Business Practices Committee

8. The Meeting on 10 February 1999

 

 

Officials of the Committee again met with VdDussen at the offices of RealityNet on 10 February 1999. VdDussen explained that, to grasp fully the present situation, one should start during ±1983 with his involvement with three companies. The companies involved were Omnisure Beherend (Pty) Ltd, Omnisure (Pty) Ltd (Omnisure) and Data Inn (Pty) Ltd. Omnisure Beherend was allegedly the controlling company of both Omnisure and Data Inn (Pty) Ltd. VdDussen said, however, that Omnisure Beherend (Pty) Ltd was a dormant company.

 

Omnisure was a brokerage and during 1983 had approximately 11 directors, inter alia VdDussen himself, a Neethling, Burger, Birkenstock, Malan, Vermooten, Oosthuizen, Ferreira, Coetzer and two others. As time went by, the shares of the directors were bought out by VdDussen and Neethling or their shares were transferred to VdDussen and Neethling. He could not recall exactly whether he bought the shares or if the shares were merely transferred to him. During 1987 Neethling also disappeared from the Omnisure scene.

 

During 1989 to 1991 other shareholders bought shares in Omnisure, for example, a Geldenhuys, Neethling, VdDussen (snr), Schoembie, de Villiers, Minnie, Eloff and Viljoen. The directors of Omnisure were VdDussen, Schoembie and Neethling.

 

In 1994 VdDussen "broke away" from Omnisure and also resigned as a director. He was the only shareholder of the dormant Omnisure Beherend (Pty) Ltd and changed this name by special resolution to Realiteitsrisikobestuursdienste (Pty) Ltd (RRB). He took with him (and thus to RRB) certain "obligations" from Omnisure. These "obligations" arose from the fact that, as he said:

"I wanted to accept the obligation on the behalf of the company because I did not want to expose the shareholders to a greater risk than that I was subject to".

 

He said that he accepted the obligations that he took over but that was not the case with Schoombie and Viljoen. The result was that a number of issues remained outstanding and the completion of the audit of Omnisure and RRB by the auditors, RJ Theunissen and Lubbes, was not possible. He said that he had in his possession certain "Parting documentation" ("Skeidingsdokumentasie").

 

VdDussen explained that the "obligations" resulted from investments made by people that he approached or by whom he was approached to invest money in his businesses. These investments were either in the form of shares or loan capital to the companies. It was put to VdDussen that neither he nor Omnisure or RRB or RealityNet had a legal obligation towards any shareholders. He agreed, but argued that he had a "moral" obligation towards these investors.

 

At the end of the meeting VdDussen undertook to make a number of documents, including the "Parting documentation", available to the officials on 15 February 1999. The documents (the 15 Feb 99 documents) consisted of a covering letter and 54 A4 pages.