South Africa’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the country’s competition watchdog can proceed with its long-running case accusing six international banks of colluding to manipulate the dollar-rand exchange rate, reviving one of the country’s biggest financial market competition cases.
In a judgment handed down on June 30, the court ruled that the Competition Commission could continue its case before the Competition Tribunal against Investec, BNP Paribas, JPMorgan Chase & Co, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, Standard Americas Incorporated and HSBC Bank.
The ruling largely upheld an earlier Competition Appeal Court decision that narrowed the scope of the case, leaving only the six banks to face trial while excluding 28 other local and international lenders named in the Commission’s appeal.
The Competition Commission said in 2015 it had uncovered evidence that traders at several South African and global banks coordinated trading strategies and shared confidential information to manipulate the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the South African rand between 2007 and 2013. The case was referred to the Competition Tribunal in 2017.
The matter has since gone through multiple hearings before the Competition Tribunal and the Competition Appeal Court, with legal disputes centring on which banks could be held liable under South Africa’s competition laws and whether the tribunal had jurisdiction over foreign institutions.
Among the banks no longer facing the case are South African lenders FirstRand and Standard Bank of South Africa.
A spokesperson for the Competition Commission said the regulator was studying the Constitutional Court’s judgment and would respond in due course.
The tribunal will now hear the substantive allegations of market manipulation against the remaining six banks.
The case is one of several global foreign exchange investigations launched after regulators in the United States, Britain and Europe uncovered widespread misconduct in currency markets more than a decade ago. Since 2014, major international banks have paid billions of dollars in fines to regulators worldwide over allegations that traders used private online chatrooms to coordinate trading and manipulate benchmark foreign exchange rates.
Faustine Ngila is the AI Editor at Impact Newswire, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He is an award-winning journalist specializing in artificial intelligence, blockchain, and emerging technologies.
He previously worked as a global technology reporter at Quartz in New York and Digital Frontier in London, where he covered innovation, startups, and the global digital economy.
With years of experience reporting on cutting-edge technologies, Faustine focuses on AI developments, industry trends, and the impact of technology on society.
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