The CEO, chair and head of Spar’s largest division have been accused of fraud and perjury before two high courts by three brothers, who filed a criminal complaint at a Pretoria police station on Thursday.
Chris Giannacopoulos, who lodged the complaint at the Moot police station in Pretoria on Thursday, is one of three brothers who own 45 Spar grocery and bottle stores through a network of 13 companies. The complaint was filed with the support of rights group AfriForum.
The complaint does not guarantee prosecution by the National Prosecuting Authority but nevertheless, it is likely to add to growing governance concerns around the JSE-listed company with annual revenues of almost R136bn.
The complaint is against CEO Brett Botten, former CEO and current chair Graham O’Connor and MD of the Spar South Rand, the biggest division, Desmond Borrageiro.
In short, it is alleged in previous legal skirmishes in 2019 the three Spar executives said in court papers that the Giannacopoulos brothers owed it just more than R171m, when unbeknown to the family at the time, its debt with the group had already been sold on to WesBank.
In January 2020, Spar issued summons against the brothers’ companies for the debt in the high court in Durban.
The brothers have accused the three Spar executives of purposely misrepresenting the facts before the high court in Pretoria in 2019 and the high court in Durban in 2020, saying the executives knew the debt had been sold to WesBank at a discount, and was no longer owed to Spar, as claimed.
The debt allowed Spar to take control of the brothers’ stores in October 2019 in a secret court battle, until the trio fought back and won. A day before that battle, the brothers had been kicked out of the Spar membership guild in a hearing from which they say they had been excluded and not told about.
Days later, the judge awarded the brothers their stores back and extra costs against Spar for the misrepresentations and nondisclosure about the secret hearing.
Part of the criminal complaint relies on the judge’s findings of misrepresentation by Spar executives in this case.
Borrageiro and Botten provided affidavits in the fight to take control of the stores. O’Connor signed the summons documents in the Durban case to have the debt repaid to Spar, when it was already allegedly owned by the bank. The summons was later dropped.
This is the second criminal complaint that Business Day is aware of. Retailer Amaan Sayed, who was operating a Spar outlet in Lyndhurst, Johannesburg, opened a criminal complaint of fraud against Botten at the Midrand police station on November 3.
The Giannacopoulos complaint, however, has the backing of AfriForum private prosecutor Gerrie Nel, who is best known for his prosecution of Oscar Pistorius.
Chris Giannacopoulos said in a statement that since the failed court bids by the Spar Group, the relationship between the brothers and Spar had soured further and they would consider private prosecution of the executives.
Nel said: “We were approached by the Giannacopoulos Group because of the skills and expertise that we offer in order to deal with what may be perceived as corporate bullying. The impact of the alleged false statements and misrepresentations in court papers has been immeasurable, not only financially but emotionally too.”
More executives will be implicated when another case is filed in KwaZulu-Natal, AfriForum said in a statement.
The Spar Group said it was unable to comment as it had not seen the formal complaint.
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