HARARE – The High Court has struck off its roll, businessman George Katsimberis’s application seeking to arm-twist former partner, Ken Sharpe into a business deal which the latter abandoned for alleged breach of contract.
Katsimberis dragged Sharpe to court after the developer withdrew from a Joint Venture Agreement which the two had entered into back in 2016.
In his defence, Sharpe said there was no contractual obligation between the parties.
He said he was forced to dump the deal after Katsimberis had failed to honour the agreement in which the parties had agreed to build some residential flats in Harare for resale.
Sharpe wrote to Katsimberis withdrawing from the deal accusing the latter of failing to procure town planning approval which was to be obtained by November 2017.
“The town planning approval was a sine qua non to the commencement of construction of the flats on the property which was agreed to commence on the 1st of December 2017,” reads part of the letter by Sharpe.
“To date, there has been no development on the property despite our client’s compliance with the terms of the Joint Venture Agreement and several requests for Halinka to perform in light of its failure to take timely steps to comply with its building obligations.”
According to court papers, parties entered into a Joint Venture Agreement on June 7 2016 whereupon they agreed to develop some land in Harare measuring 7.663 hectares.
They also agreed to build over 600 flats on the land.
Among other things, Katsimberis was to pay US$759,000 and parties were entitled to 50% shareholding each in the JVA.
Sharpe said Katsimberis delayed progress forcing him to step down.
This led to the legal battle initiated by Katsimberis arguing that cancellation of the Joint Venture Agreement should be nullified.
In the court papers, Sharpe was cited in his capacity as the trustee of the Kilimanjaro, Porcupine and the Hamster Trusts.
The Trusts were also cited as second to third respondents respectively.
