THE Sekunjalo Group of Companies' (Sekunjalo) bank accounts at Nedbank will continue to 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 this morning’s 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.
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 stated 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, indeed, had 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 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 SC said there was no need to re-argue the original case and argued that Nedbank had failed to prove its conduct against Sekunjalo was not based on discrimination.
Ngalwana argued 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 by South Africa’s all-powerful banking fraternity, which has moved to systematically close Sekunjalo’s accounts and those of related entities.
The move by the country’s banks affects about 8,500 employees and indirectly over 40,000 livelihoods and has been described by financial academics, and industry commentators, among others, as an attack on transformation.