RBZ Strikes Back, Takes Golix To Court Over Unpaid Legal Costs

Golix and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe are at it again. The central bank has approached the High Court seeking a order for wasted costs against Zimbabwe’s first cryptocurrency exchange.Wasted costs is a court order which states that a certain party must pay the costs involved in a trial that has to be delayed.

In the affidavit seen by Kukurigo, RBZ and Dr. John Mangudya are saying that Golix haven’t paid for the cost incurred by the central bank in preparation of the lawsuit Golix had filed against them (but later withdrew). The affidavit read:

Applicants (RBZ and Mangudya) advised the respondent of the amount of wasted costs they had incurred for the abandoned hearing and despite a follow up by the applicants through a letter dated July 8, 2019 … the wasted costs were never paid by the respondent and they remain outstanding.

Where its coming from

The feud between the two can be traced back to last year in May when RBZ ordered all banking institutions to stop processing and handling transactions involving Golix. In return, Golix filed a lawsuit against RBZ,arguing that the central bank had no legal authority to ban cryptocurrencies, among other couple of reasons (arguments) presented before the High Court.

But two months ago, on the 5th of August, Golix inexplicably withdrew it’s lawsuit against the RBZ. Then RBZ and Dr. Mangudya notified Golix of the amount of wasted costs they had incurred in preparation for the trial which never happened since Golix had withdrawn the lawsuit. However, Golix never paid for the wasted costs.

And here we are, RBZ is now suing Golix for not paying it’s dues. RBZ reportedly didn’t specify the amount of money it’s owed by Golix.

Also read: After Golix, There’s Now Cryptogem: A Local Peer-to-peer Bitcoin Trading Platform