The KwaZulu-Natal High Court has dismissed an urgent bid by Educor Holdings to freeze the provisional liquidation of its subsidiary, Educor Property Holdings (EPH).
This latest development has added more chaos to the troubled education group.
Acting Judge Warren Shapiro turned down Educor’s request, which was made under Section 354 of the 1973 Companies Act, to pause the winding-up order given on October 23, 2025, and to stop provisional liquidators from taking over EPH.
Creditor Bowwood and Main 131 (RF) (Pty) Ltd initiated the original liquidation, and the Government Employees Pension Fund also opposed any stay.
Educor had argued that the October 23 hearing before Judge Jikela was fundamentally unfair.
It said EPH did not get a fair hearing, that the urgency was wrongly accepted, and that important defenses, like section 45 of the Companies Act and the Badenhorst rule on disputed debts, were overlooked.
In a detailed judgment, Shapiro, unmoved, described applications to set aside liquidation orders as extraordinary and rare.
Part A of the application dismissed
“Generally speaking, the order will be set aside only in exceptional circumstances. Having considered the transcript as a whole, I cannot identify any procedural irregularity that either vitiated the proceedings or denied EPH its constitutional rights.”
He noted that EPH had filed two affidavits and detailed heads of argument.
“The inability of EPH to develop its submissions orally to its satisfaction does not alter the fact that the gravamen of those submissions was before the presiding judge and had been considered by her,” he added.
The judge ruled that Educor’s substantive attacks on whether Bowwood was a creditor and whether EPH was commercially insolvent amounted to an attempted appeal or rehearing, both impermissible under section 354.
“I do not have jurisdiction to do so under section 354, because I would then be collapsing the distinction between a section 354 application and a rehearing or appeal.”
The court dismissed Part A of Educor’s application with costs. In Part B, the bid to permanently set aside the liquidation order was postponed indefinitely.
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