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Picture: THINKSTOCK

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On Tuesday morning we received an interim High Court Order instructing us not to publish a story premised on an internal memo from the head of legal, risk and compliance at SAA, Ursula Fikelepi, to the board of the airline. The order was e-mailed to the story’s author, Carol Paton, at 1.47am.

The order includes the print edition but since we print our first edition at 9.30pm and the second edition at 10.30pm it was not possible to comply with the order, so the print edition is on the retail shelves. Neither SAA nor its attorneys, considering the lateness of the hour, attempted to notify the Business Day telephonically of their intentions.

While we have taken the story down from this website it is our intention to approach the High Court as soon as possible to have the interim order, which we were not able to defend when the application was made, set aside. In SAA’s court papers, which we have now seen, the airline argues that the memo in question is “privileged” and should therefore not be published. We believe this argument is unfounded and is contradicted by case law.

SAA is a public institution that continues to receive billions of rand in taxpayer bail-outs. It is ludicrous to suggest, as they do, that the public is not entitled to know the real state of the organisation. In February the National Treasury’s Budget Review described SAA as being “technically insolvent”. What happens next is of enormous public interest.

We at the Business Day shall continue to pursue the SAA story so that the public can form informed opinions about this public entity.

— Ed.