The High Court has dismissed an application by Bluebird Aviation Limited director Yusuf Abdi Adan against his co-directors seeking to have the company dissolved.
Yusuf had filed a suit and made allegations of fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering against three directors and his co-shareholders – Hussein Ahmed Farah, Hussein Unshur Mohamed and Mohamed Abdikadir Adan.
According to Justice Alfred Mabeya, the allegations made by Adan are invalid, unsupported and untrue.
“All that the plaintiff did was to make sweeping allegations without any backing by way of evidence ,” Mabeya said.
Mabeya noted that the allegations against a director must be substantiated and verifiable to establish grounds for protecting the company against fraudulent directors.
However, the plaintiff did not have the facts to sufficiently particularized the relief Adan sought.
“Without such evidence, allegations remain allegations, and a court of law will not grant any orders on the grounds of unsupported allegations” or on an alleged facts that were not,” said the judge.
The judge further asserted that the suits filed, particularly the winding-up cause, was intended to scare away the company’s customers thereby drastically damage its reputation and success.
The court noted that the three defendants built the company from an initial purchase of one aircraft on credit and flying it until the company was financially stable, noting that Adan never actively participated in the affairs of the company for 23 years and if he had been excluded, he never took action on it.
According to Mabeya, Yussuf had earlier sought to sell his shares to the remaining shareholders in a letter prior to filing a series of lawsuits and complaints with state agencies and against the company all that were unsubstantiated and unproven.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations, a multi-agency team on airports security and several other state investigative agencies conducted investigations which found allegations made by Adan against his co-directors false.
The Financial Reporting Centre and the company’s bankers concluded that;
“Generally, it was untenable to investigate some of the allegations because the complainant did not provide the foundation for his allegations. His statements did not shine any light on them or provide any empirical evidence on the numerous allegations. He did not disclose the sources of his information or the basis for making such allegations, and where he made claims, we found those claims farfetched.”
Yusuf is now faced with a mountain of legal costs involving several law firms that represented the defendants including Oraro & Co. Advocates, Archer & Wilcock Advocates, Sagana Biriq & Co. Advocates, Michael Daud & Co. Advocates and Kemboy & Co. Advocates.
