AN ATTEMPT by an aggrieved bidder, Team Aviation, to use the Court to overturn the decision to give the lucrative ground handling operations of the defunct national carrier, Ghana Airways, to Aviation Handling Services (AHS) Ghana Ltd, has floundered on the rocks as an Accra Commercial Court has dismissed the motion on notice filed by Team Aviation.
The Court in dismissing the motion on notice filed by Team Aviation against the Registrar of Companies as first defendant and the winner of the bid, AHS, the second defendant, also awarded costs of ¢8million each to the two defendants in the suit (OCC/1/06) which has the Registrar of Companies as first defendant with AHS, the new operator as the second defendant.
Team Aviation, obviously peeved over its inability to win the bid for the ground handling operations of the defunct national carrier, filed a suit against the award of the contract to AHS which is in partnership with Menzies S.A., one of the biggest ground handling operations companies in the world with visible presence at such airports at Heathrow, London, and Johannesburg International Airport, in South Africa.
Menzies provides ground (passenger and ramp) and cargo handling services and has 12,000 employees worldwide, operates at 106 stations in 24 countries, serving over 500 aviation customers, and handles more than 300,000 flight turns, 50 million passengers and 1.3million tonnes of cargo every year.
Its ground handling services include ticketing, check-in, load control, baggage transfer, ramp handling, aircraft pushback, aircraft loading and unloading, toilet and water services, de-icing and other ancillary services to both airlines and airport authorities in addition to other services such as ramp transfer, import/export handling, landside surface transportation, real time track and trace facilities and electronic communications and business management systems.
However, the Court, having listened to the arguments of Counsel of the two parties, dismissed the plaintiff’s motion on notice and awarded a total of sixteen million cedi cost to each of the defendants.
The substantive suit has however been adjourned to January 25 and 26 for definite hearing by the Court.
In the suit in which Awoonor Law Consultancy is representing the aggrieved Team Aviation, the plaintiff submitted that it responded to an advertisement that announced the sale of GAHCO to which it, in partnership with a German company, accordingly responded. But the company claimed that based on its proposals it should have won the bid instead of AHS, which it claimed, presented false documentation to win the bid.
But the German company, Airport Dusseldorf Ground Handling Gmbh in a letter dated February 14, 2006 to Team Aviation warned the Ghanaians to desist from using their name for this venture.
The letter to Mr. Darko-Mensah signed by Joss Lamners said among other things that, “Please allow us to report here in an emphatic way that we have at no point in time in the past made any such or similar statement of intent whatsoever vis-a-vis Team Aviation, and also inform you herewith that we are still not prepared to enter into any legal business activities”. We moreover ask you to immediately ensure that further statements, according to which our companies have reached legally binding agreements on cooperation are stopped respectively that any incorrect statements already made are correspondingly rectified.”
Concluding, the Germans asked Team Aviation to by February 18, 2006 also to present prove that the incorrect statements made in the legal proceedings with Aviation Handling Services before the Superior Court of Judicature, Commercial Division in Accra 9 Suit Nr. OCC/1/06) have been correspondingly rectified.
The company is therefore asking the Court to declare the sale of GAHCO to AHS, which is being represented in Court by Hesse & Hesse, as illegal, null and void, and to order the re-opening of the bidding process.
Team Aviation is also asking for the revocation of the certificates of registration and commencement of business and an injunction restraining AHS from exercising any rights of ownership in respect of GAHCO.
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