I reckon they should paint the Huey red
From the Cape Times:
Filming of helicopter 'invading privacy'
March 25, 2004
By Fatima Schroeder
The Huey Extreme Club at Cape Town's V&A Waterfront has asked the Cape High Court for an interdict prohibiting its competitor from filming its operations, saying it is an invasion of its right to privacy.
The club is a voluntary association offering Vietnam War-era Huey helicopter flights to members from its V&A helipad.
The club launched the court application against Ernest McDonald, trading as Sport Helicopters, on February 9.
Judge President John Hlophe granted an interim order in terms of which McDonald undertook to stop filming any of the club's operations pending the outcome of the application.
It emerged yesterday that the filming allegedly started in December 2002 on a sporadic basis before occurring on a daily basis a year later.
The filming includes the embarking and disembarking of passengers, take-off, refuelling and the crew.
The club says members have objected to the filming and it fears its business and profitability will drop further.
The club's counsel Brian Pincus, SC, said McDonald's behaviour was an invasion of the club's right to privacy.
"Even if (McDonald's) reason for the filming was at one time bona fide, the Civil Aviation Authority, city council and the media were already aware of his complaints and objections and the continued filming has now gone beyond that which is reasonable for its stated purpose".
He asked for an interdict, pending the outcome of an action for damages already brought by the club against McDonald.
McDonald's counsel, Roelof van Riet, SC, said his client maintained that the Huey helicopter was conducted in an unsafe manner and against safety regulations.
The filming was in the public interest and if the court granted the interdict, the club would know that it was not being filmed and operate contrary to safety regulations.
Judge President Hlophe has reserved judgment.
And involving a related party
Asset unit has to return R1.15m
March 25, 2004
By Estelle Ellis
Johannesburg: What a difference a day makes - that's what the Asset Forfeiture Unit found out when it had to return R1.15 million to a businessman because it had not done its job timeously.
The unit also agreed to pay the man's legal costs, but had a demand of its own - it asked that the whole mess just be allowed to quietly go away.
National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Makhosini Nkosi said yesterday that the authorities were busy investigating how things had gone so horribly wrong. He said he was not aware of an instruction that the media could not be told about what happened.
But unit head Willie Hofmeyr said he was reluctant to comment as there was a settlement order - which was "fairly common in civil cases" - that it would not be discussed.
Last year, in a blaze of publicity, the unit applied to the Cape High Court for the preservation of R1.15 million in cash which had been confiscated by police at Cape Town International Airport.
The money belonged to businessman Gary van der Merwe of Wellness International, and was supposed to be delivered to Johannesburg businessman Jacobus van Heerden as payment for a life policy. It was transported by Johan Blignault, who carried it in two bags and a box. According to papers the money was confiscated because of Blignault's "evasive answers" that he had picked the money up "somewhere in an office in Bellville" (near Cape Town).
The court was told the Scorpions were investigating Van der Merwe for fraud, theft and contraventions of the Companies Act, and the unit said it was suspecting money-laundering.
Van der Merwe and Van Heerden denied any wrongdoing or that they were involved in money-laundering. They maintained that there was nothing illegal about conveying money of a sum of that magnitude.
In her judgment issuing the preservation order, Judge Shanaaz Meer said: "The conveyance of R1.15 million was in itself cause for suspicion, unusual and at the very least foolhardy in the current climate of crime. It provides grounds for reasonably suspecting something untoward, and the police acted reasonably in seizing the money."
To have the money forfeited to the state, the unit had to file papers within 90 days after the preservation order was obtained.
It filed its application after hours on day 90, but it only reached Van der Merwe's Cape Town attorneys on day 91 - one day too late, according to the letter of the law.
This led to an application by Van der Merwe's legal team that the state return the money. The unit told his legal team that it would return the money and pay the legal costs - estimated at several hundred thousand rands - and insisted that the whole unfortunate incident be kept under wraps.
Nkosi said he "can confirm that the Asset Forfeiture Unit withdrew the application for a confiscation order owing to technical reasons".
"There are currently internal efforts aimed at establishing the exact cause of the technical reasons which led to the withdrawal of the application," he said.
But Hofmeyr said that "the option to redo the case is still open to us".
"We have done so in a number of other cases," he said.