Bank accounts shut

company generated between R14m and R25m a month “depending on sales”.

“Do I understand you correctly that I need to provide you with a breakdown of each and every client that pays money into my account?” he asked.

Van der Merwe requested an urgent meeting. “If you would like to visit our facility in Boksburg to understand our business we will really appreciate it.”

The next day, he received a letter stating that his account had been closed “in terms of the bank’s internal rules and risk appetite”. Van der Merwe said a business development official at the bank had told him “that they were very sorry” about closing his account but the “instruction” had come from “someone higher up in the bank”.

“The account had been closed because VR Laser was perceived to be a political risk because of its shareholding. The bank representative indicated that it was ‘the whole Gupta thing’ and that the Gupta family were not sanctioned on the South African Reserve Bank list and, therefore, the Bank of China could not afford the risk of doing business with VR Laser.

“The representative indicated that the Bank of China would do business with VR Laser if it restructured its shareholding to exclude the Gupta family.”

Van der Merwe said Standard Bank had made the same demand. He related a site visit from a Standard Bank official, bearing termination letters, who told him “the only solution for VR Laser would be for it to change its shareholding”.

He “made it clear that Standard Bank would not be satisfied for as long as the Gupta family held a beneficial interest in the shares of VR Laser”.

Asked on Thursday what effect the account closures had on his firm and which financial institution was processing his payments, Van der Merwe said he would not comment while litigation was pending.