The National Director of Public Prosecutions’ (NDPP) settlement with ex-Gupta crony Daniel McGowan will give him control of Optimum Coal Mine (OCM) and its valuable export arm, the Optimum Coal Terminal (OCT), both of which are in business rescue, without a proper accounting of his role in the Gupta laundromat.
Read more in Daily Maverick: High Court seals NPA’s R500 million Optimum Coal forfeiture settlement deal.
It will also put an end to questions about the origins of his claims as a creditor, as well as his and the business rescue practitioners’ actions while the mine was effectively under their control.
It reverses the stance taken by the NPA since it successfully applied to preserve the business, which was once the jewel in the Gupta’s South African crown, pending its forfeiture to the state as an instrument of a crime or the proceeds of illegal activity.
Prior to this agreement, the NDPP concluded that McGowan was a knowing participant in the laundering of Gupta cash, which he should have reasonably suspected was the proceeds of crime.
The NPA also claimed that he had suborned the business rescue practitioners (BRPs) and that the mine had been exploited under business rescue to the tune of billions of dollars, including for the benefit of companies linked to McGowan.
Both McGowan and the BRPs have consistently denied these allegations, fighting them tooth and nail in a two-year legal battle against the NPA.
Now, the NDPP’s about-face is an effective admission of the weakness of her case, despite McGowan’s agreement to forfeit.
At the heart of that weakness is the NDPP’s failure to secure the UAE’s timely cooperation in officially disclosing banking information from the Guptas’ Dubai businesses.
This could have allowed prosecutors to prove the illegal origins of the Guptas’ money, specifically the $100 million they lent to McGowan’s Bermuda-registered company, Centaur Ventures Limited (CVL), which is a joint venture with their Sun City son-in-law Akash Gargh.
A large portion of this cash eventually helped Gupta-owned Tegeta Resources buy Optimum for slightly more than R2 billion in 2016.
At the heart of that weakness is the NDPP’s failure to secure the UAE’s timely cooperation in officially disclosing banking information from the Guptas‘ Dubai businesses.
This could have allowed prosecutors to prove the illegal origins of the Guptas’ money, specifically the $100 million they lent to McGowan’s Bermuda-registered company, Centaur Ventures Limited (CVL), which is a joint venture with their Sun City son-in-law Akash Gargh.
A large portion of this cash eventually helped Gupta-owned Tegeta Resources buy Optimum for slightly more than R2 billion in 2016.