Judgment reserved in banks' rand rigging scandal

Case includes Standard Bank, Nedbank and First Rand Bank

- ZELDA VENTER

THE Competition Commission's decade-long fight to prosecute local and international banks for the rand/US dollar manipulation is now before the Constitutional Court, which reserved judgment this week.

Some of the country's top senior advocates argued over three days in the appeal application brought by the commission against the majority of the findings made by the Competition Appeal Court (CAC) last year.

This was against the CAC's findings that the commission did not have jurisdiction over the majority of the international banks.

The arguments, which were of a highly technical nature and dealt with the Competition Act, ended a day earlier than expected.

This was also the first time that newly appointed Deputy Judge President Dunstan Mlambo sat on the Concourt bench in this capacity.

Standard Bank, on Thursday, accused the commission of "sticking to its bloody-minded ignorance" by continuing to accuse the bank of allegedly being part of a cartel which manipulated the rand/US dollar exchange. The commission hit back, saying the bank had pulled out all the stops in a bid not to face the music.

Advocate Kate Hofmeyr, acting for Standard Bank, told the Concourt that in 2017, when the commission told the media that the banks were allegedly involved in an international cartel colluding to manipulate the rand/US dollar, Standard Bank's share price dropped in a few days by 3.8%, which equated to R8.5bn.