Absa's submissions that it could not reopen accounts it had previously closed were rebutted yesterday by Advocate Vuyani Ngalwana SC, acting for Sekunjalo Investment Holdings and 35 other applicants (the Sekunjalo Group), says a Cape Argus report.

Making his final submissions during the Competition Tribunal hearing on the matter between Sekunjalo and nine of the country’s biggest banks, Ngalwana quoted a Constitutional Court judgment from the 2001 case of the National Gambling Board v KZN Premier in which the Constitutional Court had said that in an application for an interim interdict, the dispute was whether the status quo should be preserved or restored, pending the decision of the main suit.

‘Absa says we cannot ask for the reopening of accounts already closed because that is not maintaining the status quo. However, the Constitutional Court judgment put paid to Absa’s argument that interim relief is not for reopening what has already been closed,’ Ngalwana said.

In its submissions, Absa, represented by Advocate Michelle le Roux, claimed it had acted unilaterally in closing Sekunjalo’s accounts in February last year and that the fact that other banks followed suit shortly afterwards was a ‘coincidence and not collusion’ and not the action of a cartel.

The Cape Argus report says Le Roux was reacting to tribunal chairperson Mondo Mazwai’s suggestion of possible outcomes to the matter, and how Absa would react given various scenarios.

Le Roux said the tribunal’s ruling should not be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, and that each bank’s position needed to be individually assessed when it comes to allegations of prohibitive practices Sekunjalo have made.

Asked by tribunal panel member Andreas Wessels how her client would react to Sekunjalo’s argument that no firm could continue operations without access to banking facilities, Le Roux claimed that Sekunjalo had not demonstrated to the tribunal how dire its position was.

Full Cape Argus report