South Africa's top court says bank rand-rigging case can proceed

Source: Reuters.

The ruling preserves one of South Africa's largest market-manipulation cases after years of litigation.

The case forms part of a wider global crackdown on foreign-exchange rigging that dates back more than a decade. That crackdown resulted in some of the world's biggest investment banks paying more than a combined $11bn in fines to settle US, British and European regulatory allegations that traders manipulated currency rates for years.

South Africa's Competition Commission first referred the case to the Competition Tribunal in 2017, alleging traders at major banks co-ordinated trading activity in the US dollar-rand market between 2007 and 2013, largely through private online chatrooms.

In a judgment handed down by Justice Owen Rogers, the court confirmed that the case will proceed to a full hearing against BNP Paribas, JPMorgan Chase & Co, JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., Investec, Standard Americas Incorporated and HSBC Bank Plc.

JPMorgan, BNP and HSBC declined to comment. Investec and Standard Americas did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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The claim alleges that Standard Chartered, Citibank, Absa and Barclays were also involved, but those banks have already settled or secured leniency.

Among the banks to settle the case, Standard Chartered admitted to prohibited conduct and paid more than R42m ($2.6m) in 2023.

Attempts by the Commission to revive claims against a range of other lenders, including Bank of America, Standard Bank, Nomura, Commerzbank, Nedbank, FirstRand and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, failed.

The case ruled on by South Africa's Constitutional Court on Tuesday will now return to the Competition Tribunal, where the allegations are set to be tested on their merits for the first time since the Commission launched proceedings nearly a decade ago.