FRANNY RABKIN

Staff Writer

THE North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria last week handed Michael Stainbank another setback, when it ordered the man involved in a protracted ownership dispute over the name “Apartheid Museum” to pay the costs of a failed court application and a subsequent urgent application to defer payment.

The judgment is the latest in a bitter dispute between Stainbank and Abe and Solly Krok, the brothers who are the driving force behind a group of companies that includes Gold Reef Resorts.

The Apartheid Museum, opened in 2001, was funded by Gold Reef as one of the conditions of its obtaining a gambling licence.

But Stainbank believes the museum’s name belongs to him and has been litigating since 2002.

Stainbank’s website is testament to his battle against the use of the name by the museum at Ormonde in Johannesburg.

He has written letters to the United Nations, to Nkosinathi Biko, the son of murdered Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko, to various newspapers and even to “the people of Australia” questioning the legitimacy of the Apartheid Museum and the role played by the Krok brothers in the museum’s establishment.

Stainbank has also accused the Krok brothers of having made a fortune through damaging skin lightening creams, saying on his website that the “foundation of Abe and Solly Krok’s enormous wealth is rested upon the low self-esteem that apartheid induced in its victims”.

For all his efforts, he has not had much luck in the courts.

Stainbank lost his 2002 case, when Judge Brian Southwood of the Pretoria High Court expunged the registration of the name “Apartheid Museum” from the state’s trademarks register, saying it was descriptive, rather than an item that could be registered as a trademark. Stainbank unsuccessfully appealed against Southwood’s decision.

In his latest application, Judge Piet Ebersohn took issue with Stainbank’s bid to defer the payment of the 2002 litigation, saying that Stainbank’s attorney, Donald Carls, had “failed to adhere” to the principles of urgent litigation and had not explained why.

In his judgment last Wednesday Ebersohn refused to defer the payment of costs of the 2002 case, and also ordered Stainbank to pay the costs of the urgent litigation.

This included Stainbank instructing his advocate to ask for Ebersohn’s recusal — on the basis that the judge had been rude to Carls. Stainbank’s advocate argued that this indicated the judge had already prejudged the matter.

But Ebersohn said the recusal application “was an open attempt to bully the judge and bordered on contempt of court”, and ordered Stainbank to also pay the costs of the recusal application.

He also said that Stainbank’s advocate “profusely apologised to the bench,” after Ebersohn refused to recuse himself.

Unusually, Ebersohn ordered that, if Stainbank did not pay the costs of the urgent application, which included the failed recusal, Carls should pay out of his own pocket (“de bonis propris”). A de bonis propris costs order is considered the most punitive a court can make, usually indicating a high level of irritation at how a case has been conducted.

Stainbank has applied for leave to appeal against Ebersohn’s judgment, saying the parties had previously agreed to defer the payment.

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Source: Business Day