Open Secrets was until Thursday gagged from publishing that ICP sells armoured vehicles to the UAE. While it is not known what the UAE does with these vehicles, the UAE has been accused of being the main backer of the RSF in Sudan, which is accused of committing genocide.
A gag order against Open Secrets was overturned in the Western Cape High Court on Thursday afternoon by Judge Nathan Erasmus.
Open Secrets is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to “hold the profiteers of economic crime, human rights abuses, and war to account”.
The applicant, Integrated Convoy Protection (ICP), a South African armoured vehicle manufacturer, wanted the court to prevent the publication of an investigation by Open Secrets.
Thursday’s hearing came after an urgent application by ICP on 5 November resulted in Acting Judge Gavin Cooper ordering a temporary gag on Open Secrets.
During Thursday’s hearing, it came to light that Open Secrets was given very short notice, only about 2 hours, to come to court on 5 November. The urgent application by ICP was made following right-of-reply questions sent to them by Open Secrets for their investigation.
Judge Erasmus was critical of the short notice given to Open Secrets by ICP to appear in court. He suggested that the urgent hearing could have taken place later that day or the following day on 6 November, which was still before Open Secrets’s deadline for their questions sent to ICP.
At the outset of the hearing, Erasmus said to the respondent that he needed to determine “whether this is litigation by ambush”.
Erasmus also suggested that Acting Judge Cooper had not “known the whole picture”.
Robert Stelzner, representing ICP, argued that the consequences of the publication of Open Secrets’ article would have “demonstrable real risk”, “financial consequences”, and “irreparable harm” to the reputation of the company.
“The applicant stands to lose business from this client if the client’s identity becomes known,” said Stelzner. The client in question is a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While it is not known what the UAE does with these vehicles, the UAE has been accused of being the main backer of the RSF in Sudan, which is accused of committing genocide.
Geoff Budlender, representing Open Secrets, said that ICP withheld information from Acting Judge Cooper prior to his granting of the gag order on 5 November.
He said that some information had been “redacted in order to conceal the nature of the contract” for the supply of armoured vehicles to the UAE.
Budlender argued that ICP had “unclean hands” and had abused the court process.
He explained that, ironically, ICP sought confidentiality, yet “we’re sitting here in open court” with the media present.
Mitchell De Beer, representing investigative news organisation Amabhungane, which was admitted as an amicus in the case, argued ICP had a “myopic” view of what the “public interest” entails.
“The public has the right to know … parts for armoured vehicles are exported to the UAE and ending up in war-torn countries,” said De Beer.
Following the court proceedings and the reading of the order, Hennie Van Vuuren, director of Open Secrets, expressed delight that “the court has ruled in the public interest”.
“It’s ensured that corporations, including companies that are involved in the arms trade around the globe, can’t prevent public interest investigations from being published,” he said.
“It’s not only a win for Open Secrets; it’s a win for investigative journalists in South Africa,” said van Vuuren. “Now we can go ahead and publish.”
© 2025 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.
The South African National Parks are protected areas where activists advocate for conservation and biodiversity.
Suicide Crusher
Fun South African Fact: Travel to Tsitsikamma, on the border of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape to visit the world’s highest commercial bungee jump! Those who are brave enough can take the 216-meter jump off the Bloukrans Bridge and soar through the air towards the Bloukrans River below. Definitely a must for thrill-seekers and adrenaline-junkies!
Y0Dler
Fun South African Fact: The Karoo region in the Western Cape is home to some of the best fossils of early dinosaurs. In fact, it is estimated that some 80% of the mammalian fossils found to date were found in the Karoo.