Wian Bonthuyzen, the former Media24 manager of community newspapers in Media24’s Volksblad stable, had some allegedly damning evidence against Media24 – naturally he tried to get Media24 to pay him off before he went to the Competition Tribunal.

On Tuesday, Bonthuyzen testified that Media24 used its Forum newspaper in the Free State Goldfields as a “fighting brand” against competitor, Gold-Net News. He said advertising tariffs at Forum were cut to below that of the competitor without a minimum and without regard to production cost.

This sneaky strategy was a closely-guarded secret, and documents about the deals weren’t kept in the office.

Complicating matters is the fact that Media24 charged Bonthuyzen with fraud, but asked him to assist in the Competition Comission case in 2011 while his own fraud case still hadn’t been finalised. He was eventually found guilty of committing fraud to the value of R3,000 with another possible R5,000 loss. He spent more than R500,000 in legal fees.

So Bonthuyzen was, in effect, only attempting to get Media24 to help him pay off his legal fees through peddling his damning evidence against them. According to him, he would never have testified for Media24, “Never in my life!”

[Source : MoneyWeb]