The Commercial Case Law Index is a collection of judgments from African countries on topics relating to commercial legal practice. The collection aims to provide a snapshot of commercial legal practice in a country, rather than present solely traditionally "reportable" cases. The index currently covers 400 judgments from Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
Get started on finding judgments that are relevant to you by browsing the topic list on the left of the screen. Click the arrows next to the topic names to reveal a detailed list of sub-topics. Most judgments are accompanied by a short summary written by subject-matter expert postgraduate students from the University of Cape Town.
The case related to a petroleum agreement between the Ghanaian government and a Norwegian company. The agreement was ratified by Parliament, but the Minister of Energy thereafter refused the company’s assignment of their Petroleum Agreement to its wholly owned local subsidiary. The question was whether Parliament’s permission is required to terminate a resource exploitation transaction, as they ratify it. The rationale for ratification is for transparency, openness and participation in matters involving natural resources but the exercise of checks and balances does not extend to approving termination of agreements that the executive has jurisdiction over. The court held that whereas Parliament ratified these agreements, the act remains an act of the executive and Parliament’s approval is not needed to terminate the agreement.
Litigation was commenced to recover a debt from a company incorporated in Australia that was wholly owned by a Ghanaian company. The High Court granted judgment in favour of the appellant for the amount due. The judgment was appealed because the respondent proposed a scheme of arrangement to reorganise their debts with their creditors. but the appellant subsequently the appellant filed a petition to liquidate the company as it was unable to pay off its debts. The court granted to wind up the company. However, the Court of Appeal granted a stay of execution of the winding-up before the respondent appealed the original decision of the High court to pay the amount due.
The appellant did not succeed with the appeal because they did not prove that the Court of Appeal failed to take relevant matters into consideration, considered irrelevant matters of misapplied the law.