Retraction of article and apology to Symbion Power LLC

On 8 May, Daily Maverick published an erroneous article titled “US firm Symbion, once associated with Durban’s Vivian Reddy family, sued in New York court”, dealing with New York court proceedings involving the US-based independent power producer, Symbion Power LLC. 

Based on information made available subsequently to Daily Maverick, we have since determined that several statements in that article were wholly incorrect and Daily Maverick apologises for the errors. 

The article incorrectly stated that Symbion was being “sued” in a US court. Daily Maverick wishes to clarify that those proceedings are a discovery application by a former business partner in the company’s Madagascar power plant project, Zouzar Bouka, with whom Symbion has a dispute. It is in fact Symbion that has “sued” Bouka in a New York arbitration. 

More significantly, the article failed to report on Symbion’s replying affidavit’s refutation of Bouka’s allegations, which was filed in court before the publication of the article.

In addition, we retract the statements and have determined that it was wholly incorrect to state that Symbion was once associated with the family of Durban businessman Vivian Reddy and was part of a consortium that recently lost a case against Eskom.

It was not, and Symbion was not associated with Reddy.

Daily Maverick has retracted and removed the article, and apologises to Symbion Power LLC and its CEO, Paul Hinks, for any harm that may have been occasioned by the publication of the article. DM