Five of six former Dimension Data executives who were found last November by the high court to have engaged in a “brazen and dishonest” scheme involving the sale of the company’s Johannesburg head office have hit back at “false claims” that they engaged in BEE fronting and improper conduct.
Read: Sonja De Bruyn fires back in Dimension Data feud
The former executives, who in January won leave to appeal the high court judgment against them, called the allegations “part of a sustained and sinister campaign launched by NTT” – the Japanese company that acquired Dimension Data in 2010 – “to deflect attention from their responsibility for the poor performance of their African business, to conceal a BEE fronting scheme they conceived and implemented in order to exit South Africa, and to excuse this conduct by promoting a malicious falsehood that this was attributable to our corporate malfeasance”.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” the five former executives said in a statement on Monday.
“We are confident that we will expose the falsity of these allegations in the court cases instituted against us. However, NTT and its advisors have seen fit to seek to advance their case outside of court with the sinister intention of causing damage to our good names and reputations, and with the intention of drumming up support for our prosecution. We have therefore decided to set the record straight,” they said.
It’s not clear what specific new allegations the former executives are referring to, though Currency — a business news website — reported late last month (paywall) that the Hawks had taken statements “in preparation for laying possible criminal charges” against them.
According to the report, NTT lodged a criminal complaint against the former executives after last November’s damning high court judgment against them, which found that they had engineered a fronting deal designed to benefit themselves financially.
Read the former executives’ full statement (PDF)
High court judge Denise Fisher, who handed down the scathing judgment against the former executives, agreed in January that it could be taken on appeal, a matter that will now be heard by the supreme court of appeal in Bloemfontein.
‘Illegal scheme’
Fisher, in her November judgment, found that the former senior executives had “entered into an illegal scheme” designed to benefit them personally at the expense of Dimension Data and its ultimate parent, NTT Group.
The court declared the sale of The Campus property in Bryanston null and void and awarded punitive costs against the former executives. TechCentral broke the news in January 2022 that several former executives – unnamed at the time – had become embroiled in a fraud scandal following a forensic probe into the December 2019 sale of The Campus in a complex black economic empowerment transaction.
NTT Ltd, which is owned by Japan’s NTT Group, appointed international law firm Herbert Smith Freehills to conduct a forensic investigation into allegations brought forward by a whistle-blower.
Read: Dimension Data campus sale was an ‘illegal scheme’
In last November’s judgment, Fisher not only found in favour of NTT but awarded punitive costs against the former executives and made several damning findings against them.
She found that the executives had “entered into an illegal scheme designed to appropriate for themselves a secret financial benefit which placed them in conflict with their boards”. She described the scheme as “brazen and dishonest” and said it was orchestrated “without due regard to the relationships between the Japanese holding entities (NTT) and the South African interests”.
The judge also found that should “this kind of flouting of foundational and universal commercial values remain unchecked and unpunished, this would represent a travesty of South Africa’s commitment nationally and internationally to the upholding of the values of honesty and integrity which are so intrinsic to proper commercial relationships”.
But in a joint statement after the judgment was handed down, the former executives said the court’s findings “came as a surprise” to them and to their lawyers. “We are resolute in our commitment to ensuring that we are exonerated from any wrongdoing,” they said at the time.
The former executives, first identified in TechCentral’s reporting on the scandal, are:
- Jeremy Ord, who until mid-2021 served as Dimension Data’s executive chairman;
- Jason Goodall, a former Dimension Data CEO who later took the reins at NTT Ltd (Goodall was not a signatory to Monday’s press statement);
- Grant Bodley, who served as Dimension Data Middle East & Africa CEO until March 2021;
- Steven Nathan, Dimension Data’s former head of corporate finance, who resigned in mid-2021;
- Saki Missaikos, a former MD of Dimension Data’s Internet Solutions who was group head of strategy prior to his exit, also in mid-2021; and
- Bruce “Doc” Watson, a Dimension Data stalwart who left around the same time.
“Over our hundreds of years of combined service, we have enjoyed an unblemished and sterling track record until NTT launched a co-ordinated campaign designed to denigrate our good names and reputations,” the five former executives said in Monday’s statement.
“Contrary to the claims against the [former] executives, it was NTT and its advisors, not the executives, who developed and implemented a BEE fronting ‘warehousing’ scheme through the use of a vendor-funded private equity vehicle,” they claimed.
‘Fundamental misunderstanding’
“The allegations against the executives are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the BEE rules that applied in this case… The truth is that NTT … put profit before transformation, when in approximately May 2019 they rejected proposals to effect meaningful transformation through the transfer of equity in the business to previously disadvantaged employees and partners. NTT preferred a scheme that relied predominantly on a sale and rent-back proposal [that businesswoman Sonja De Bruyn’s] Identity [Partners] had proposed and that had been described by the reputable firms of attorneys employed by NTT, as a ‘warehousing scheme’.
Read: Dimension Data drags ex-bosses to court over Campus deal
“There were numerous objectives behind this campaign, including attempting to undo NTT’s BEE transaction that they conceived and implemented in contemplation of selling the business to the executives and to claw back amounts the executives earned over years of service and attribute their own malfeasance to the executives,” the five alleged.
TechCentral has asked NTT Data for comment on these latest allegations and will update this article if and when feedback is received. De Bruyn, meanwhile, described the claims in the former executives’ statement — including one that Identity Partners “misappropriated” R5-million, as “defamatory and libellous”. She said the allegations against her and Identity Partners are “serious and unfounded”. Read more here: Sonja De Bruyn fires back in Dimension Data feud.
The executives alleged that when NTT instituted legal proceedings against them, it denied them access to the “documents and e-mails on the Dimension Data servers that corroborate our claims and reveal that the claims against us are baseless”.
“By granting us leave to appeal to the supreme court of appeal, the court recognised that there are sound, rational and reasonable prospects of another court coming to a different conclusion,” they said. “NTT persists in misrepresenting the BEE rules and advances the false contention that our indirect participation in the limited partner in the fund (which was irrelevant to the BEE rating) somehow subverted BEE.”
Read: NTT Ltd sues ex-CEO Jason Goodall for millions
Claiming they “consistently championed genuine transformation”, they said NTT opted for “superficial BEE compliance and blocked efforts to implement sustainable black ownership in the business”.
“The real BEE fronting scheme was developed and implemented by NTT and Identity Partners, with the vendor loan serving as a mechanism to retain economic control, while superficially appearing compliant,” they alleged.
Identity Partners has rubbished this claim. “It is false that Identity Fund Managers colluded with Dimension Data/NTT to gain BEE credits. The executives’ narrative defies logic and is preposterous. It is patently false that a vendor loan of this nature could have been secret when it was made in full view of all parties involved in the deal and with all properly executed documentation.” – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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