Judgment was reserved on Wednesday in a Cape High Court bid to prevent the installation of high-tech radar tracking systems in South Africa's new corvette fleet.

Cape Town company CCII, which markets the systems, said in an urgent application earlier this week that an agreement concluded in 2000 stipulated CCII had to be paid before Reutech Radar Systems could install the devices.

Some of the devices had been delivered to Reutech but not paid for, and R13.5-million was outstanding.

Reutech denied CCII owned the systems and told Judge Andre Blignault it had already paid R14-million.

The first of the corvettes, the SAS Amatola, arrived in Simon's Town last week from the Hamburg shipyard where she was built.

The corvettes are part of the South African government's controversial multi-billion rand arms package.

Earlier this year CCII, which is headed by managing director Richard Young, launched a R150-million lawsuit after it lost a subcontract to supply information management systems for the corvettes.

The contract was instead awarded to Detexis Systems, a sister company of African Defence Systems which has been linked to the firm of Deputy President Jacob Zuma's friend Schabir Shaik.

With acknowledgement to Sapa.