Shareholder battle for Dynavision

By S.S.Selvanayagam

The Supreme Court re-fixed for argument on 1 August the appeal on the disputed shareholdings of Dynavision Broadcasting Company (Pvt) Ltd.

The Bench comprised Justices Shirani Thilakawardena, K.Sripvan and S.I. Imam.

The appeal petition was filed by I.W.S.Holdings (Pvt) Ltd., Indulakshin Wickremasinghe (Arthur) Senanayake and two others challenging a judgment of the Commercial High Court delivered in 2002.

The High Court by its said judgment held that Dr. Renatus D.G.W.Koehn (now deceased) of Germany was the lawful owner of 999,998 fully paid shares of a total of 1,000,000 ordinary shares by Dynavision Broadcasting Company (Pvt) Ltd.

Counsel S.L.Gunasekara with Rajeev Amarasuriya instructed by Sudath Perera Associates appeared for the Appellants. Uditha Egalahewa with Amrith Fernando appeared for Philip Nikolaus Koehn, the son of the deceased Dr. Renatus D.G.W.Koehn.

The Appellants in their appeal petition contend that the impugned judgment was per incurium and/or erroneous in law as it was not in conformity with imperative provisions of Sections 10, 11, 15 and/or 30(5) of the Exchange Control Act and several Regulations which prohibit persons resident outside Sri Lanka owning more than 40% of the shares in Companies carrying on the business of Mass Communications.

The Appellants challenge the judgment on several grounds including on the legality of the increase of the Authorised Share Capital of the said Company and the further allotment of 20 million shares of the Company to Arthur Senanayake, I.W.S.Holdings (Pvt) Ltd and Dynacom Engineering (Pvt) Ltd.