Mackwoods Majority Shareholders Win Court Battle Against Dr. Chris Nonis
In what seemed to the second most significant derivative action since the Companies Act no 7of 2007 came in to effect, the majority shareholders (holding more than 60% share holding) of Mackwoods Securities (Private) Ltd, the holding company of Mackwoods Group of Companies; were given green light by the Commercial High Court to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).
As such the EGM was held on 7 July 2016 at the Colombo Club at Taj Samudra Hotel and three new directors- Mr. Mano Tittawella, General Daya Ratnayake and Mr. Shraepathy Attanayake, were appointed to Mackwoods Securities (Private) Ltd.
The EGM was held with the concurrence of Commercial High Court of Colombo, where the minority shareholder and former High Commissioner to united Kingdom -Dr. Chris Nonis (holding less than 29%) failed all his attempts to have the said EGM restrained.
The Commercial High Court on 5 July 2016 ruled in favor of the majority shareholders on all the cases filed on this matter and interestingly none of the interim reliefs sought by Dr. Chris Nonis were granted. Dr. Nonis, in yet another case before another Division of the Commercial High Court also sought an interim order to prevent two shareholders i.e. F.G.N Mendis and Mrs. N Samaratunga from exercising their voting rights, which interim order was also refused and thus, all interim orders sought in case numbers HC (Civil) 14/2016/CO, HC(Civil) 24 /2016/CO and HC(Civil) 25/ 2016/CO were refused.
Following rulings favourable to the majority share holders, EGM was held last week and the following new directors were appointed on consent of 60% of shareholders.
Mr. Tittawella is the current Chairman / Managing Director of the EAP Group and was the Chairman & CEO of the Strategic Enterprises Management Agency (SEMA), General Director of Public Reforms Commission (PERC) and Senior Director General of President’s Office. He is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK) and has read a Master in Business Administration from University of Edinburgh, UK.
General Ratnayake was the 20th Commander of Sri Lanka Army and is one of the most decorated officers with a distinguished career of 36 years. He is a Graduate of the United States Army Intelligence School, Arizona (USA), National Defense University, Beijing (China) and Defense Service Command and Staff College, Dhaka (Bangladesh).
Mr. Shraepathy Attanayake is a practicing commercial lawyer, board member of CIMA Sri Lanka and Director of several companies including Trico Logistics Ltd. and OMAK Technologies Ltd. He earned his first Degree in Mathematics and Physics, from University of Colombo and passed out as an Attorney-At-Law of the Supreme Court from Sri Lanka Law College. He is also a Fellow Member of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) in UK, a member of Certified Practicing Accountant (CPA) in Australia and Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in UK.
