Victory for Sekunjalo in bank account battle
IN A VICTORY for the Sekunjalo Group, the Competition Tribunal granted interim relief and ordered that all the group’s closed bank accounts be reopened.
The interim relief will subsist for six months from the date of the Tribunal’s order or pending the conclusion of an investigation by the Competition Commission into a complaint regarding restrictive practices filed by the Sekunjalo Group against the banks, whichever occurs first.
Sekunjalo Group Chairman Dr Iqbal Survé expressed relief at the ruling.
“This has been a challenging period for all of us, but this outcome is a step in the right direction to restoring our reputation, as well as our ability to trade and deliver on our Group mandate.
“We are most grateful to the Tribunal for their fair, just and considered opinion of the facts at hand. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the leadership and employees of the various companies within the Sekunjalo Group for their belief in our cause and for the resilience that they have shown throughout this tireless process,” he said. Dr Survé said this order was also important for financial institutions and their systems that need to be supportive of transformation.
“This will help to open the economy and include more competition. It is time that the abuse of power of these oligopolies and their anti-competitive conduct be prevented and that they face their reckoning. Their continued anti-transformation actions and attitudes go against our fight for freedom and liberation,” he said.
The Sekunjalo Group argued that the banks’ conduct of closing accounts or refusing to provide banking and payment services constituted an abuse of dominance, or collusion, or co-ordinated conduct which lessened competition in contravention of the act.
On harm to competition, the Group argued that without access to banking and payment services, it would cease to trade and effective competition within the various markets in which it operates will be eliminated.
In response, the banks argued that the case concerns the right and ability of the banks to enforce the contractual terms that govern the subsistence and management of accounts lodged with them, where the accounts in question may cause the bank significant reputational risk.
They further argued that the enforcement of these contractual terms does not constitute a contravention of the act. Furthermore, the banks argued that dealing with the applicants, allegedly implicated in wrongdoing, is a reputational risk.
A total of 36 applicants (including Dr Survé) brought the interim relief application against nine banks, claiming that the banks’ conduct in terminating the banking relationship with them and/ or refusing to provide banking and payment services to them constituted an abuse of dominance and/or collusive conduct in contravention of the Competition Act.
The nine banks are Nedbank, Absa Bank, First Rand Bank, Sasfin Bank Access Bank, Standard Bank of South Africa, Mercantile Bank, a division of Capitec Bank, Bidvest Bank and Investec Bank.
The Tribunal however dismissed the applicants’ interim relief application in relation to Investec, as the relevant accounts were seemingly used for the personal banking of Dr Survé.
It added that these accounts have no bearing on the ability of the Sekunjalo Group to compete or sustain itself in the markets in which it operates.