Advocate’s battle against bank repossessions in South Africa

CLASS ACTION

- ZELDA VENTER [e-mail]

FOR many, taking on the country’s major banks in a R60 billion class action suit may seem like a David vs Goliath exercise, but for legal expert in banking matters and advocate Douglas J Shaw, it is a matter of principle — especially as he has scores of vulnerable people who have lost their homes counting on him.

The practices of South Africa’s major banks, who are accused of repossessing people's homes and selling them far below market value, are due to come under the spotlight in February. The Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, will then be asked to certify the class action.

This is nearly a decade after the R60 billion class action suit was launched in 2017. Since the start and up to now, Shaw has been working relentlessly in a bid to bring justice to those who claimed to have lost their homes unjustly.

The soft-spoken Shaw, who is leading the class action bid, was brought up in the nation of William Wallace (Scotland). Standing up against what is wrong in society is maybe in his genes, as he was instrumental in bringing in the reserve price legislation to stop the banks in the past from selling people’s houses for far less than they were worth.