BusinessLive reports that Andile Ngcaba's damages claim against Dimension Data (Didata) got off to a wobbly start on Tuesday when the High Court in Johannesburg refused to hear special pleas raised by the IT firm.  

Judge Fritz van Oosten said he could not hear the special pleas raised by Didata and its Japanese parent company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in the matter brought by Ngcaba because he had he only received the applicable court papers on Monday evening.  He indicated that he could only hear an application for a postponement of the case.  Ngcaba is seeking R271m from his former employer, claiming he was not paid the same as members of the team that reported to him from 2004 to 2016.  Didata and NTT had sought to raise a special plea with the court that Ngcaba should have brought the claim before the Equality Court or the Labour Court.  They had also sought to argue that the court had no jurisdiction over NTT as it was an overseas company.  Jenny Cane, for Didata, NTT and Didata executive director Jeremy Ord, asked the court to grant a postponement because their expert dealing with the amount of damages had not had time to produce a report in time for the trial.  Dali Mpofu for Ngcaba said the trial had been correctly labelled as ‘corporate racism’.   He opposed the defendants’ postponement application, arguing that their unreadiness was a delaying tactic.  The application on the postponement continues.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ernest Mabuza at BusinessLive

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page