A six-year legal battle between Choppies shareholders Ramachandran Ottapathu and Farouk Ismail, and audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Botswana has come to an end. The Choppies shareholders have withdrawn their multimillion-pula claim while PwC have been ordered to pay costs arising from the earlier court battles.
A consent order issued by the High Court says that the two shareholders’ claim against PwC and its audit partner, Rudi Binedell, is withdrawn.
The order further directs PwC and Binedell to pay the Choppies shareholders’ costs arising from court orders made on November 24, 2021, April 5, 2023 and April 1, 2025. The parties will otherwise bear their own costs.
The withdrawal brings to an end one of Botswana’s most protracted corporate legal disputes, which began after PwC delayed signing off Choppies’ 2018 financial statements.
Ottapathu, Choppies’ chief executive, and Ismail, one of the retailer’s founding shareholders, initially sued PwC and Binedell for about P450 million in 2020. The claim was subsequently reported at more than P600 million, with Moneyweb putting it at P653 million.
The shareholders alleged that PwC’s handling of the 2018 audit contributed to the suspension of Choppies’ shares on the Botswana Stock Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the subsequent collapse in the company’s market value.
The dispute also centred on allegations concerning Binedell’s independence as auditor after discussions about him potentially taking up a senior position at Choppies.
PwC consistently defended its work, arguing that the delay in finalising the financial statements arose from accounting and governance issues uncovered during the audit. The firm maintained that it would defend the claim. The litigation produced several important interlocutory rulings before the underlying damages claim could reach trial.
Instead, the litigation ends with the claim withdrawn by consent, while PwC and Binedell remain liable for costs associated with the specified earlier proceedings.
In 2021, the High Court ruled on issues concerning the auditor’s independence and the parties’ respective cases. A 2023 ruling by Justice Boipuso Makhwe also favoured the shareholders on procedural issues.
PwC subsequently launched a separate legal challenge seeking to have proceedings before Makhwe declared a nullity, making serious allegations concerning the conduct of judges involved in the earlier proceedings.
That challenge was dismissed by the High Court in April 2025. The ruling represented another setback for PwC, although the substantive P653 million damages claim had still not been determined.
The latest order therefore does not amount to a judgment finding PwC liable for the losses claimed by the shareholders.
Nor does it award the shareholders the P450 million or P653 million they had sought.
Instead, the litigation ends with the claim withdrawn by consent, while PwC and Binedell remain liable for costs associated with the specified earlier proceedings.
The order does not disclose any settlement amount between the parties.
The case thus ends without a trial determining the central question of whether PwC and Binedell were legally responsible for the losses alleged by Ottapathu and Ismail.
