Bloomberg News reports that the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) has lost a Labour Court case that may compel it to pay bonuses to executives that were withheld on instruction from former finance minister Tito Mboweni amid a governance scandal.

The PIC was ordered in a ruling by Judge Graham Mashoana last week to pay Mervin Muller, its former head of private equity, an amount of R3.28m plus interest, which the court said he was contractually entitled to. The order may mean that other executives will be eligible to receive their performance-related bonuses — about R51m of payments were held back in 2018 and 2019. A number of executives have demanded their bonuses. Mboweni “did what he did to prevent the PIC from performing its contractual obligations”, Mashoana indicated. “His actions are invalid” because they were beyond the scope of his legal authority, the Johannesburg-based judge ruled. The PIC has two weeks to decide whether or not to appeal.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Antony Sguazzin at BusinessLive

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page