Legal Articles and Guides

Lawyers and their firms have been warned that they could face disciplinary action and administrative penalties of up to R50m for failing to comply with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act.

You find the house of your dreams, agree on the price and get ready to put pen to paper. The house is in the name of a company, and you are offered a choice – either buy the house out of the company or take over the company (which owns the house and nothing else) by buying the shares and thus avoid the delay and cost of a normal property transfer and registration in the Deeds Office.

Collapsed bitcoin scheme Mirror Trading International (MTI) was placed in final liquidation this week by the Western Cape High Court, according to Moneyweb.

Lawyers for the Cajee brothers, who ran a cryptocurrency investment platform from SA that regulators suspect of being a Ponzi scheme, said their mandate to assist them has been terminated, according to Fin24.

Dozens of former VBS Mutual Bank employees are heading to the Constitutional Court to claim R230m from global professional services firm KPMG for misstating the financial statements of the now-defunct financial institution, according to a report on the IoL site.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) says it does not provide financial services to private individuals or companies and that its name, logo and address are misused sometimes in fraudulent schemes, notes a TimesLIVE report.

The Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) yesterday ruled that the application brought by AYO Technology Solutions to prevent FNB from closing its accounts will not be heard on an urgent basis.

Hawks head Godfrey Lebeya has confirmed that ANC veteran and businessman Tokyo Sexwale has lodged a complaint with it regarding claims that billions of donor funds were stolen at the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) over a period of four years.

Some unions, business organisations and political parties have slammed the decision of First National Bank (FNB) to shut down the accounts of AYO Technologies and accused banks of being players in the country’s factional politics, rather than protecting jobs, says reports in Independent Media newspapers at the weekend.

AYO Technology Solutions, the company indirectly controlled by Iqbal Survé, has filed an urgent High Court application to stop FNB from terminating its transaction banking facilities, it said yesterday evening.

The Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court has rejected the guilty plea of an admitted R11.6m pyramid-scheme fraudster, who allegedly swindled 11 unsuspecting people over a seven-year period, says a Mail & Guardian report.

VBS Mutual Bank has completed the transfer of guaranteed retail deposits to Nedbank, giving depositors little more than three months to collect money guaranteed to them based on an agreement between relevant authorities, says a BusinessLIVE report.

Absa has cut ties with 24 companies directly or indirectly controlled by Iqbal Survé’s Sekunjalo Investment Holdings.

Both the government and the country’s financial institutions must make it clear to South Africans what will happen to mortgage bonds on properties expropriated under the Expropriation Bill, according to the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).

The SA Reserve Bank is being sued for allegedly enabling Steinhoff to move assets worth €19bn overseas while the group was technically insolvent – and allowing its local entities to settle claims by foreign investors ‘to the detriment of the South African economy’.