The High Court has granted Savvas Investments leave to sue OK Zimbabwe, allowing the property company to continue with its eviction case against the financially distressed retailer despite its ongoing corporate rescue.
Justice Lucy Mungwari specifically permitted Savvas to proceed with case HCHC 110/26, which was filed before OK Zimbabwe entered voluntary corporate rescue.
In practical terms, the ruling means Savvas can now pursue its pending court action seeking to confirm cancellation of OK Zimbabwe’s lease, evict the retailer from its Mount Pleasant premises and recover holding-over damages and other amounts claimed.
The judge, however, did not rule on whether the lease was validly cancelled or whether OK Zimbabwe must ultimately be evicted.
Those issues will be determined in the main case.
The dispute concerns commercial premises at 48 Bond Street, Mount Pleasant, Harare, which Savvas says OK Zimbabwe has continued occupying despite cancellation of the lease.
Mungwari ruled that the statutory protection enjoyed by a company under corporate rescue is not an absolute bar to litigation.
“Corporate rescue cannot be converted into a substantive extension of a contested lease,” the judge ruled.
The case arose from a lease agreement entered into by the parties on December 19, 2024.
Savvas alleged that OK Zimbabwe repeatedly breached the lease by failing to pay rent, municipal rates and electricity charges on time, failing to convene agreed management meetings and neglecting necessary repairs.
Savvas cancelled the lease on December 12, 2025 and demanded that OK Zimbabwe vacate the premises.
The retailer remained in occupation.
On February 17, 2026, Savvas issued summons seeking confirmation of the cancellation, eviction, holding-over damages and payment of municipal rates.
A week later, on February 24, OK Zimbabwe entered voluntary corporate rescue.
That triggered the statutory moratorium under Section 126 of the Insolvency Act, meaning Savvas could not continue with its court action without obtaining leave from the High Court.
Savvas subsequently applied for that permission and has now obtained it.
OK Zimbabwe opposed the application, arguing that allowing Savvas to proceed would undermine the rescue process and prejudice its approximately 3 000 creditors, employees and other stakeholders.
The retailer said it was undergoing restructuring intended to rehabilitate the business and preserve it as a going concern.
It also disputed Savvas’ allegations of persistent default and challenged the legality of the lease cancellation.
OK Zimbabwe initially told the court that it expected to emerge from corporate rescue by July 31, 2026, following a resolution by creditors.
But that date passed without the company exiting rescue.
When the matter was heard, OK Zimbabwe’s lawyer could not give the court a new exit date and ultimately accepted that the duration of the rescue was indefinite.
Justice Mungwari found that this created continuing prejudice for Savvas because the property remained occupied while the dispute could not be resolved.
The judge said Savvas was not simply attempting to recover money from a company under rescue.
It was seeking possession of its property.
The court also noted that the eviction proceedings had already been instituted before OK Zimbabwe entered corporate rescue.
“The applicant is therefore not seeking to institute a speculative or newly conceived claim against a company already under rescue,” Mungwari said.
“It seeks leave to continue proceedings which had already commenced before the moratorium took effect.”
The judge deliberately left the central contractual dispute for the trial court.
“I do not intend to determine whether or not the lease agreement was cancelled before the commencement of corporate rescue,” Mungwari said.
But the judge noted that OK Zimbabwe’s denial of the alleged cancellation was weak.
“Whilst that argument by the applicant was forcefully and repeatedly pleaded it was tepidly and baldly refuted by the respondent leaving it barely controverted,” the judge said.
The court further held that if the lease had indeed been cancelled before corporate rescue began, the rescue process could not revive it.
“The protection does not revive dead contracts,” Mungwari said.
“If the lease was cancelled before corporate rescue, the respondent’s presence on the property may be considered as unlawful possession.”
The judge said corporate rescue could not be transformed into a mechanism for forcing a landlord to continue a contractual relationship it no longer wished to maintain.
“Corporate rescue cannot be used as a shield to expropriate a landlord’s property rights or force them to host an unlawful occupier without compensation,” the judge ruled.
Savvas also told the court that the continued occupation was causing mounting financial and physical prejudice.
It alleged that arrear rentals, holding-over damages, municipal rates and electricity charges continued to accumulate while the property deteriorated.
The company further alleged roof and ceiling leaks, flooding, plumbing defects, blocked waste pipes, damaged equipment and damp, saying it had been forced to incur repair and maintenance costs.
Mungwari found that refusing Savvas leave would leave the landlord waiting for an uncertain period while those liabilities continued to grow.
“The prejudice to the applicant is immediate, continuing and capable of increasing,” the judge said.
OK Zimbabwe argued that allowing the proceedings would threaten the rescue process and potentially open the floodgates to other creditors seeking to litigate against the company.
The judge rejected that argument.
“Section 126 requires each applicant to obtain consent or leave,” Mungwari said.
“Granting leave on the facts of one proprietary dispute does not create an exemption for other creditors.”
The court also found that OK Zimbabwe had failed to demonstrate that the Mount Pleasant premises were indispensable to its rescue plan or that allowing the litigation to continue would necessarily collapse the restructuring process.
The judge said the company had referred to an adopted rescue plan which supposedly dealt with the premises but had not produced the plan or identified its relevant provisions.
Mungwari stressed that corporate rescue exists to give distressed companies breathing space to restructure, but that protection has limits.
“Corporate rescue proceedings must not be used as a tool to propel other financially sound entities into bankruptcy in the guise of saving the financially troubled corporation,” the judge said.
The court consequently granted Savvas leave to continue with its pending action under HCHC 110/26.
However, the ruling does not amount to an eviction order.
It simply removes the corporate-rescue barrier that had prevented Savvas from pursuing its case.
The main court proceedings must now determine whether Savvas lawfully cancelled the lease, whether OK Zimbabwe must vacate the property and whether the retailer is liable for damages and other amounts claimed.
OK Zimbabwe was ordered to pay Savvas’ costs on the ordinary scale. This version makes the legal consequence clear in the second paragraph and again near the end: leave to sue has been granted; it is not yet an eviction order.
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