Illustrative image: Anton Friedman, representing Daily Maverick (left) and Emanuel Masombuka, legal representative of businessman Collen Mashawana, who brought an urgent application in the Johannesburg high court on 27 August 2025 to gag Daily Maverick. (Photos: Felix Dlangamandla) 
Businessman Collen Mashawana’s urgent high court application against Daily Maverick and investigative journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh was dismissed, with punitive costs, on Wednesday, 27 August.
Read more: Inside Collen Mashawana’s attempt to silence Daily Maverick
Mashawana had sought an interim interdict in the Gauteng Local Division of the High Court in Johannesburg to silence further reporting and discussion by Daily Maverick and Myburgh after a near year-long probe into allegations of corruption, misuse of public funds and exploitation of vulnerable workers, Daily Maverick’s Rebecca Davis reported.
Mashawana’s lawyers, in papers filed on Thursday, 21 August, had alleged that if Myburgh was allowed to discuss his recent investigative work at Daily Maverick’s The Gathering conference this week, it would amount to a “public shaming” of Mashawana.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/6I1A5064.jpg "Counsel for Daily Maverick, Adrian Friedman, pointed out that, essentially, the horse had already bolted in that the allegations were already out in the public domain. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)")
A subsequent affidavit charged that Myburgh and Daily Maverick had “elected to pursue a monetised and sensationalised public campaign, including the planned event of 28 August 2025, aimed at maximising reputational damage” to Mashawana.
Myburgh’s investigation has dominated the public sphere since 11 August. His reporting detailed payments from Mashawana toward a luxury house linked to suspended Independent Development Trust (IDT) CEO Tebogo Malaka, alongside an Expanded Public Works Programme contract worth tens of millions for the Collen Mashawana Foundation (CMF) and a trail of unpaid workers.
Mashawana’s 98-page founding affidavit targeted two Daily Maverick articles - one published on 11 August 2025, and a live Q&A session held by Myburgh on 15 August.
Read more: IDT contractor ripped off workers, bankrolled Malaka’s R16m property
The documents alleged that the reporting defamed Mashawana by linking him to payments totalling R200,000 towards a property being built for Malaka. These payments, made in July 2024 and April 2025, coincided with the evaluation period for a R60-million Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) contract awarded to Mashawana’s CMF foundation just three weeks later.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/6I1A4964.jpg "Emanuel Masombuka, legal representative of businessman Collen Mashawana, in the Johannesburg high court on Wednesday, 27 August 2025. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla)")
On Wednesday, acting Judge Alex Pullinger struck the application off the roll. The applicant was ordered to pay punitive costs.
Mashawana’s lawyers argued that his reputation would be irreparably harmed if Myburgh were to discuss his recent investigative work at The Gathering. They contended this was the reason for the urgency of the matter.
Counsel for Daily Maverick, Adrian Friedman, pointed out that, essentially, the horse had already bolted in that the allegations were already out in the public domain.
The relief sought would do nothing to repair Mashawana’s reputation in the face of the number of other media reports that have already been published on the matter, argued Friedman.
“It’s just not a case in which an interdict can be granted… There is a failure to appreciate the difference between interdictory relief on the one hand and compensatory relief on the other hand… The purpose of interdictory relief is not to assuage a person’s reputation or assist their business connections or any of those things – that is the purpose of compensatory relief. The purpose of interdictory relief is to prevent a horse from bolting, when the case of a mandatory interdict is to take something down so that it no longer does the damage,” said Friedman.
Acting Judge Pullinger indicated that he would provide reasons for striking the application off the roll at a later date. DM