HARARE – The perjury trial of Amanda Berkowitz, daughter of the late business tycoon and Waverley Blankets owner Victor Cohen kicked off before a Harare magistrate on Wednesday

Berkowitz and sister Belynda Halfon are locked in a protracted dispute with nephew Aron Vico over ownership of their father’s companies and properties.

The two accuse Vico of grabbing the estate using fraudulent documents and pushing them out.

Prosecutors say that Berkowitz lied under oath when she testified last year that she was a shareholder of Waverley Plastics – one of her father’s properties in dispute – in one of her cases against Vico.

“On July 2, 2020, and at the High Court during the course of a judicial proceeding, the accused person through a statement made upon oath made a false declaration and deposed during proceedings under case number HC 5040/19 allegedly lying,” the State alleges.

A judgment on Berkowitz’s case against Vico was reserved indefinitely this week.

The late industrialist and philanthropist’s daughter denied making “perjuriously false and misleading” statements and charged through her lawyer Diana Kawanda that her nephew was trying to elbow her and sister Halfon out of their father’s inheritance.

“There was nothing unlawful about the accused’s statement that she subscribed to the shares in the registered entity known as Waverley Plastics (Pvt) Ltd,” Kawanda argued before Harare magistrate Vongai Muchuchuti.

“The accused person rightly made that statement in respect of her knowledge of what she experienced. The statement was not false at law, as it is a statement that has its own legal meaning and effect in terms of elementary company law, wherein no person would challenge the meaning of the same in the given circumstances.”

Kawanda added: “The accused will also show that the meaning of subscribed at company law does not only denote the appending of signatures as narrowly defined by state witness Aron Vico but is widely interpreted as per company law.”

Led by the prosecutor, Vico maintained that Berkowitz had lied about her shareholding status and counter-accused her aunt of forgery.

“After the death of my grandfather there have been some disputes which have spilled into the courts,” he said.

“In one of the cases involving Waverley Plastics, I said in my affidavit, that, aunt did not subscribe to the memorandum of association of the company and in fact, the signatures were forged. My aunt in her responding affidavit said she in fact did subscribe.”

He added: “I had a forensic report when I noticed that the signatures were forged. In fact, none of the people in there have subscribed.”

The trial continues on March 31.

The Waverley empire wrangle has raged since the 2017 death of Cohen in South Africa, leaving behind a fortune made from textile manufacturing, and several other subsidiary companies, all numbering about 13.