An urgent court interdict on 28 October 2019 in favour of the Wastepreneurs agrees with initial Club management interpretation of Lease

 Dear Members

 You may recall that Pirates Club issued a 60 days eviction notice to the Wastepreneurs NPO on 12 Sept 2019 as consequence of the pressure brought upon the Club by our landlord, Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) fully owned by the City of Johannesburg (CoJ)

As stated in the eviction notice the Club has at no stage agreed with the Council’s interpretation of the Club’s lease nor the legality of the purported cancellation by the landlord.

The Club Council voted on 10 September to issue the eviction notice and again confirmed that the Club was not in breach of its lease per Club Council and legal opinion, but wanted to have the lease cancellation threat/issue removed by acceding to the CoJ pressure, albeit being on incorrect contractual and legal grounds.

This decision was motivated by a press release issued from the office of the  MMC for Economic Development, Cllr Leah Knott, on 3 September stating inter-alia that “As of 2 September 2019, Pirates were given yet another 60 days to remedy the breach of their contract by asking WastePreneurs to vacate the site” 

On 28 October 2019 the Johannesburg High Court heard an urgent application brought by five individual wastepreneurs against the CoJ  and JPC and consequently Pirates Club as well, for relief against eviction by the Club/Landlord and also the error of the lease cancellation undertaken by the landlord, as a consequence of the pressure brought to do this by the landlord (the Club did not oppose the application). 

On 1 November 2019 the Court gave judgement in favour of the applicants (the Wastepreneurs) and ordered that they need not vacate (see page 25 link to Judgement) and further that the lease is not cancelled until a full hearing is held (see pages 25 and 26 of the Judgement, in particular 2.3).

We remain of the opinion, as supported by our legal advisers, that regardless of the outcome of the final full hearing of the application by Wastepreneurs, the Club will always have the right to enforce the Lease Dispute clause and in the event of that resulting in a decision that the Club is in breach of the Lease, the Club will then have 30 days to rectify (ie evict Wasteprenuers from the site) and only if failure to honour that decision (extremely unlikely) would result in lease cancellation

We await further developments and assure you will keep all members and stakeholders updated.

 Yours,

Lloyde

Pirates Club Chairman