The Industrial Relations Court (IRC) has ordered Press Corporation Limited (PCL) to pay 70 percent of the K14.1 billion awarded to three former senior executives as compensation for unfair dismissal.
The part payment ordered by the court in Blantyre on Thursday translates to about K9.8 billion.
The IRC order followed an application PCL filed asking the court to suspend its April 25 2025 ruling awarding compensation to the trio pending an appeal of the judgement in the High Court.
In that ruling, the court ordered that former PCL company secretary Benard Ndau should be awarded about K2.7 billion while former group chief executive officer George Partridge should receive K3.2 billion and former group financial controller Elizabeth Mafeni should get K8.2 billion.
Delivering the ruling on Thursday, IRC deputy chairperson Tamanda Nyimba granted PCL, which retained the designation of respondent, its prayer for a stay on condition that it pays each of the three claimants 70 percent of their compensation awarded for unfair dismissal.
Reads the ruling: “This court agrees with a submission by the applicants that the proper application to make in the circumstances of the respondent’s bleak financial position is not a stay of execution, but rather an application to pay a judgement debt by installment.”
In the application for stay, PCL argued that immediate payment of the compensation would disrupt the corporation and affect several other businesses, employees and the wider economy.
Through the affidavit of chief finance and administration executive and company secretary Moureen Mbeye, PCL told the court that the company was expected to close with a negative cash position of K5.8 billion as of April 28 2025 and the cash situation would remain strained for the rest of the year.
PCL further stated that the working capital was also negative at K7.4 billion and this would swell to K21.5 billion if the applicants’ compensation was factored in.
But Nyimba said PCL’s financial predicament is not a basis warranting the court to totally deprive or delay the three former executives’ receipt of their compensation.
He said PCL is at liberty to lodge the very same application for suspension of enforcement of judgement pending appeal in the High Court of Malawi.
The former executives were dismissed in 2021 following a functional review initiated by PCL board of directors and conducted by a consultant.
At the time of their dismissal, Mafeni received K481 million, Partridge got K452 million and Ndau was paid K179 million.
PCL, one of the largest conglomerates in Malawi, has interests in banking, telecommunications, energy, real estate and hospitality.
