Court orders Touchwood to submit documents by August 7

1 August 2014 04:47 am Views - 2427

The Commercial High Court yesterday ordered former Touchwood PLC Chairman/CEO Lanka Kiwlegedara to hand over all documents pertaining to assets to the liquidator of the company prior to August 7, 2014.

Counsel for the liquidator filing a motion informed court that despite the order for winding up and the appointment of the liquidator, Kiwlegedara has failed to submit the documents pertaining to the assets of the company being wound up.
Counsel for the liquidator also tendered a report on the winding up process and informed the court that Sudath Kumara, the court appointed liquidator, had visited and requested for the documents in writing.

He said however, that the former Chairman/CEO had failed to submit the said documents.
Counsel appearing for the former Chairman/CEO informed court that his client was not in the country and would be returning on August 4 after which all documents would be submitted to the liquidator.

Accordingly court ordered the said documents to be tendered to the liquidator by August 7. The liquidator also informed court that the period for claims has been extended by a further two months in order to facilitate the large number of claims being received.
The next hearing was fixed for August 7.

Counsel Avindra Rodrigo appeared for the Petitioner, Sanath Wijewardena for former CEO and Hafeel Farisz for the liquidator.
The Commercial High Court ordered the winding up of Touchwood Investments PLC on June 05 and the appointment of a liquidator to control the assets of the company and dispose them to pay investor dues.


The decision comes in the wake of a winding-up petition filed by K.A.D.L.P Nanayakkara, a resident of Rajagirya, in  July last year, who alleged that Touchwood Investments had failed to pay a sum of Rs.3,790,000 due to him, as at the date of the winding up application.
Touchwood Investments objected to the winding-up petition and stated that the company will settle all the investors of the Agarwood Plantation in Thailand in accordance with a proposed payment plan.

The company is claimed to be having 22, 500 trees of agarwood in Thailand which is said to be worth over US $ 50 million.
However, the company failed to make the due payments according to the dates stipulated in the proposed payment plan, despite issuing dated checques to the petitioner and other intervening creditors.