Johannesburg - David Nurek, the former deputy chairman of Business Connexion (BCX), was reported to have believed that Telkom appeared to have more information about BCX's results than its own board, according to the competition commission's senior counsel, Owen Rogers.
When cross-examining Peter Watt, the outgoing BCX chief executive, at yesterday's competition tribunal hearing into the proposed merger between Telkom and BCX, Rogers stated that both Nurek and non-executive director Reginald Berkowitz were against extending the deadline for the Telkom offer beyond December 15.
Both directors had expressed concerns about the relationship that had developed between BCX management and Telkom subsequent to the offer.
Rogers told the tribunal that BCX took Telkom executives into sales meetings with BCX clients in preference to executives from BCX's own telecommunications division, BCX Comms.
Rogers indicated that this behaviour could represent a contravention of the Competition Act, which prohibited the implementation of a merger before approval was received from the competition authorities.
Rogers said that the commission had papers that revealed that Willem van Rensburg, the former head of BCX Comms, believed there were internal forces that were working against the company and that such forces could result in the loss of a major client such as Bidvest. Other major clients included Sasol, Nampak and Old Mutual Properties.
When asked if he knew about the involvement of Telkom executives in preference to those from BCX Comms, Watt replied that management felt that BCX would not get the business if its staff they went into the meetings. "We didn't want to take BCX Comms into meetings because we felt it wasn't up to the task," said Watt.
Rogers countered that at no stage had this view been shared with the BCX Comms executives.
A board meeting in November discussed Van Rensburg's concerns about the negative impact that the overhanging Telkom deal was having on BCX.
Rogers said that subsequent to this meeting it emerged that Telkom had directly approached Sasol, which was one of BCX's major clients, and told the oil and gas company that it did not need the services of BCX any more.
Watt acknowledged that this had happened. "Telkom wanted to deal directly with Sasol and cut us out," he said.
"When I became aware of this I immediately took it up with Telkom and told them they could not behave in that way."
Nurek and Berkowitz wanted to press Telkom for damages or at least for an explanation. When nothing was forthcoming, they both resigned last December.