Affected parties have until June 9 to challenge SA Express liquidation

South African Express has been placed under provisional liquidation by the High Court in Johannesburg. 

The order was handed down in a Zoom hearing by Judge Mpostoli Twala on Tuesday morning where he gave affected parties until June 9 to make applications to challenge the order, failing which the airline will be placed under final liquidation. 

In the interim, SA Express’s business rescue practitioners Phahlani Mkhombo and Daniel Terblanche will immediately suspend all the operations of the airline and appoint a provisional liquidator pending the potential appeal process. 

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Mkhombo and Terblanche applied for the airline’s liquidation last month stating that the airline had no reasonable prospects of being rescued after the state did not extend any post-commencement funding to the process. 

The rescue practitioners have accused the state of deliberately withholding the funding and frustrating the process, which the Department of Public Enterprises has rejected as baseless.

SA Express was placed under involuntary business rescue in February by the court after one of its service providers Ziegler SA brought the application forward. 

Should the court order a final liquidation of the airline that would see the immediate closure of the SA Express, the fire sale of assets to pay creditors and the loss of close to 700 jobs. 

Read: Employees at SA Express face not being paid for March

The department, which is the sole shareholder of the company, has not made an application to challenge the application. 

Responding to questions sent by Moneyweb a week ago it said it was still “considering its legal approach on the application and its decision will be announced in due course”.