Failed SAA gagging order to be challenged

SAA’s failed attempt to cork the genie by getting an interdict to gag various media outlets from publishing a revealing legal opinion on the operating status of the national carrier is to be challenged by the affected news providers, notes Legalbrief. Moneyweb, Media24 and Business Day all indicated yesterday they would fight the interim High Court order gagging them from publishing the contents of a leaked memo dated 6 November 2015 to the SAA board from former acting CEO Thuli Mpshe. According to a report on the Fin24 site, Media24 is of the opinion that the order should never have been granted for lack of proper notice and substance, among other things. It also believes that the information contained in the memo is of great public interest. The report notes SAA brought an urgent interdict in the early hours of Tuesday morning to curb media outlets from publishing the contents of the memo which it described in court papers as ‘privileged’ and ‘highly confidential’. The document was an internal memo prepared by the head of legal, risk and compliance at SAA, Ursula Fikelepi, to the board of the airline. However, the cat was already out of the bag by the time news providers became aware of the interdict, notes Legalbrief. The interdict was too late to stop Business Day from publishing the article in its print edition yesterday morning, and it had already appeared on the Moneyweb, BDlive and City Press sites. The respondents were ordered to ‘remove all references to the opinion, including all or any of the contents of the opinion that has already been published on the Internet and social media’, an order with which they complied.

Full Fin24 report