Legal Articles and Guides

Days before R1.26bn in frozen funds was due to be released to Gupta-linked Chinese rail group CRRC, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) yesterday handed down an order that the monies remain frozen until the company provides a bank guarantee for the same amount to SARS, notes an amaBhungane report on the Daily Maverick site.

The Polokwane High Court has dismissed Nedbank’s attempt to claim more than the R800 000 it agreed to in terms of a settlement with the liquidated Cape Town Fish Market in Polokwane, notes a Moneyweb report.

Absa Bank is pressing criminal charges against an employee who has subsequently been suspended for illegally accessing and sharing customer information with third parties, the bank said yesterday, according to a Business Day report.

An attorney who specialises in consumer law has reported several companies in the timeshare and holiday club industry to the Payments Association of SA (Pasa) for alleged abuse of the payment system.

Several global banks moved large sums of allegedly illicit funds during nearly two decades, despite warnings about the organisations they were dealing with, BuzzFeed and other media reported yesterday, citing documents submitted by banks to the government.

An amount of R100 000 deposited into the personal bank account of an accused in the nearly half-a-billion-rand Durban Solid Waste (DSW) tender-rigging matter has come under scrutiny in one of Durban’s biggest corruption scandals, says a Sunday Tribune report.

Retired Judge Meyer Joffe will chair a closed inquiry into how an estimated R1bn of assets, cash, high-value residential and commercial properties and mining equipment belonging to the Guptas’ Islandsite company allegedly vanished, says a Sunday Times report.

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has dismissed, with costs, attorney Anthony Mostert's application for leave to appeal the court's earlier decision in which it granted costs in favour of the Public Protector in a matter Mostert brought against the office on an urgent basis in 2019.

The SA Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) has confirmed that credit bureau Experian suffered a data attack which ‘has exposed some personal information of as many as 24m South Africans’.

With the recovery of global financial markets and investors racing to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) to acquire equity at discounted prices, it is only normal to want to get your piece of the proverbial pie. However, with the epidemic bringing widespread job losses and salary reductions, a new investment trend is on the rise in the form of “investment clubs”.

The SA History Archives Trust has scored a major victory in its six-year legal battle with the SA Reserve Bank over access to records that may shed light on foreign exchange fraud, Eskom bonds and gold smuggling during the apartheid years, according to a report on the IoL site.

Government withheld funding for the Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB) after the entity failed to submit its budget to the Department of Land Reform, Agriculture & Rural Development for the current financial year.

How the banks will deal with the inevitable wave of defaults they will be faced with as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown, is addressed in a detailed report on the Moneyweb site.

The Land Bank has failed to stave off financial ruin after defaulting on debt that was due on Thursday. Polity reports the default has now triggered cross default on certain other bonds – a clause that puts a borrower in default if they fail to honour their other debt obligations.

The Land Bank has skipped repayments on its revolving credit facility, triggering a default and potentially putting the government on the hook for as much as R5.7bn.