Davis said it was quite clear that if the business rescue practitioners “cannot develop a plan”, then they are “supposed to recommend there is no plan”. Redding replied that this would mean “the end of the business”, in which case the business rescue practitioners were not achieving what they set out to do.
“If they had published the business rescue plan as the statute requires them to do within 25 days, they would have said there is urgency in the retrenchment and we are providing for that urgency in the plan itself and you can make your comment in the context of the development of the plan at a creditors' meeting.
He said the court had ruled against the union, saying that Numsa’s application was premature and that “company which is under business rescue can only contemplate retrenchment in a statutory document known as a business rescue plan.”“The fact of the matter is that finding suited SAA in February. They then began a retrenchment process by a voluntary process and by consultation, but they are now bound by the same outcome that suited them three months earlier.
“Of course there is not a cap. The act provides for extensions, and extensions have been sought and legitimately granted by the creditors.”Redding said there had also been “no suggestion” that the BRPs had behaved improperly and that “no application has been made for their removal”.