This blog is co-authored by Brigitte Eloff and William Hayne, candidate attorneys.
In April 2025, the Pretoria High Court admitted evidence regarding the transmission, interception and admissibility of data messages as evidence that suretyship agreements were properly signed.
The bank, as lender, sought a monetary judgment against the first and second respondents, as sureties. The
In February 2025 the High Court reaffirmed the rights of lenders in South Africa’s banking and finance landscape. The judgment is significant for financial institutions as it reinforces the enforceability of lending contracts and the limits of debtor defences during economic disruptions such as COVID-19.
In this matter the Bank concluded a written overdraft facility
In March 2021, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) handed down judgment with two important findings regarding a bank’s obligations to a third party, namely:
Climate change is no longer a future threat. The associated risks have already had a devastating impact on the financial sector.
Financial institutions are financially exposed to the physical risks associated with more frequent severe weather events, as well as the transition risks associated with the changes necessary to achieve a low-carbon economy. Mortgage, commercial
In order to attract new forms of capital, Lloyd’s of London applied for and has had regulatory approval to set up a protected cell company known as London Bridge Risk.
The idea is to make it easier for investment in the Lloyd’s market with a more transparent and efficient capital management process. It provides access
The Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) was introduced with the implementation of Basel III, and is designed to ensure that financial institutions have the necessary assets on hand to ride out short-term liquidity disruptions. Two important elements of the LCR that are especially relevant to South African banks are:
1. The LCR in South Africa was
The global banking industry has seen an increasing number of class actions being brought against it.
In August 2014 an application for class action certification was launched against a number of Australian banks in New South Wales. The class potentially consists of hundreds of thousands of bank customers who were allegedly charged excessive credit card
The SA Reserve Bank is adopting a wait-and-see approach.
The Volcker Rule came into force in the US in April 2014. The Volcker Rule is a federal regulation under the Dodd-Frank Act that, subject to exceptions, prohibits US commercial banks from engaging in short-term proprietary trading of many financial instruments for their own account. The
The European Union, the USA and Canada have imposed sanctions on a number of Russian and Ukrainian individuals and legal entities. The nature and scope of the sanctions are explained in this briefing.
If a bank has entered into credit risk mitigation arrangements with Russian or Ukrainian counterparties, or relating to Russian or Ukrainian assets,
The nature of bank notes is not often discussed and it plays an increasingly limited role in financial transactions. In the hope of avoiding a revised valued-added tax assessment, a litigant made some imaginative submissions about the nature of bank notes in Master Currency v CSARS.
The business of the litigant sold foreign currency