High court tells Nedbank to keep Sekunjalo accounts open
THE Sekunjalo Group of Companies’ (Sekunjalo) bank accounts at Nedbank will remain open after the Western Cape High Court reserved judgment in Nedbank’s appeal against the interim interdict granted to Sekunjalo in June preventing the bank from closing its bank accounts.
Reserving judgment in the matter, Judge Mokgoatji Dolamo said that because the issues raised in arguments by both sides were weighty and would require in-depth scrutiny, it would probably take about “a week or two” before he could return a ruling.
“Parties will be aware that this matter will call for an in-depth interrogation of the matters raised. It is not your run-of-the-mill kind of application.”
Nedbank had sought leave to appeal the judgment passed in June by Judge Dolamo and had argued that the matter was appealable and as such had reasonable prospects for success.
The June ruling said that pending the final determination of Sekunjalo’s main Equality Court application, any of its accounts that had already been closed at the time of the hearing of the application should be reopened with immediate effect.
That judgment also ordered that Nedbank retain the terms and conditions on which these accounts were operating prior to the date of their closure.
The matter before the Equality Court was an application instituted by Sekunjalo executive chairman Dr Iqbal Survé and 43 others representing the wider Sekunjalo Group, against Nedbank Limited and Nedbank Private Wealth Stockbrokers (Pty) Limited.
In June Judge Dolamo had said that Sekunjalo, which owns Independent Media, had indeed established a prima facie case that they had been unfairly discriminated against and that Nedbank had not proved its conduct was not based on one or more prohibited grounds.
However, appearing for Nedbank, Alfred Cockrell SC told Judge Dolamo that the interim order should never have been granted in Sekunjalo’s favour as the group had not established a prima facie case of unfair discrimination and that this alone was grounds to allow an appeal.
Cockerell said that retaining Sekunjalo’s accounts had done Nedbank irreparable reputational harm and that the June order had prevented it from terminating the relationship with Sekunjalo until the main Equality Court matter was decided one way or the other and however long it took.
Nedbank argued that Judge Dolamo’s June decision had forced Nedbank to continue banking Sekunjalo even though it no longer had the appetite to do business with the group.
Sekunjalo’s advocate Vuyani Ngalwana said there was no need to re-argue the original case and argued that Nedbank had failed to prove its conduct was not based on discrimination.
Ngalwana said that the arguments put forth by Nedbank did not hold water and that while nothing substantial would change for the bank if it continued to bank Sekunjalo, everything would change for Sekunjalo if it were to lose its bank accounts.
“The harm to Sekunjalo is not imaginary, it is palpable and so it is not in the interests of justice to allow the appeal,” Ngalwana said.
Sekunjalo’s case in the Equality Court is a bid to stop abuse an all-powerful banking fraternity that’s moved to systematically close Sekunjalo’s accounts and those of related entities.
The move by the banks affects about 8500 employees and indirectly over 40 000 livelihoods, and has been described by financial academics, industry commentators, among others, as an attack on transformation.