Publications
Partners
Court proceedings against 18 banks accused of rigging the rand currency are likely to start early next year, because prosecutors need time to prepare the complex case, the head of cartels at the Competition Commission said on Wednesday.
“Our case against the banks is very strong and we want to deal with all these technicalities so the matter can go on trial, maybe by the second quarter of next year,” Makgale Mohlala said.
Competition authorities will first hold a series of “exception hearings” to discuss the possible exclusion of banks on technical grounds.
South Africa said last August that it would no longer offer deals to banks cooperating with investigations into the alleged currency rigging, a blow to some lenders that had discreetly approached the watchdog for a settlement.
Commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele told City Press at the time: “We are not interested. We want an answer; that is it.”
In September last year, the watchdog’s commissioner expressed his irritation at the “pretrial skirmishes” and banks asking for possible settlements that had stalled the Competition Commission’s case.
A procedural conflict emerged whereby the commission wanted to have each bank’s exception ruled on separately – but the banks wanted the tribunal to combine all their objections and make the commission produce a new referral.
The worst-case scenario for the commission would be a repeat of the ill-fated milk cartel prosecution.
Major dairy companies were referred to the tribunal for collusion in 2006, but the case soon got bogged down in procedural complaints and applications.
More than four years later, the case died in the Supreme Court of Appeal on a legal point, without the merits ever actually being tried.
