A small, family-run law firm has won a High Court case against the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), with the court ruling administrative penalties cannot be calculated over a period when the regulator did not have enforcement authority.

In a judgment handed down in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) on Wednesday the court upheld an appeal by Len Dekker Attorneys Incorporated against sanctions imposed under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica).

Moneyweb reports that the firm was found to have been non-compliant with certain provisions of the Act and was sanctioned with steep administrative penalties amounting to close to R235 000.

The case centres on whether the FIC was entitled to include years of alleged non-compliance dating back to 2017, even though it only became the supervisory authority for legal practitioners on 19 December 2022. 

When the legal firm appealed to the FIC’s Board of Appeal, it ruled that the ‘calculation by the FIC of the appellant’s non-compliance from 2017 cannot be faulted’, effectively allowing the FIC to look at the firm’s conduct over several years.

The court set aside the appeal board’s finding and ordered that ‘any recalculation of the administrative sanctions is limited to the period from 19 December 2022 onwards’.

Full Moneyweb report