JOHANNESBURG - Justice Owen Rogers delivered the Constitutional Court’s ruling on Tuesday, clearing the path for South Africa’s Competition Commission to pursue forex-rigging allegations against six major banks before the Competition Tribunal.
The decision marks the first time the case will advance to a substantive hearing since the Commission filed it with the tribunal in 2017. The banks named in the proceeding are BNP Paribas, JPMorgan Chase and Co, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Investec, Standard Americas Incorporated, and HSBC Bank Plc.
At the center of the allegations is coordinated trading activity in the U.S. dollar-rand market between 2007 and 2013. Traders at these institutions allegedly colluded to manipulate currency rates, with much of that coordination taking place through private online chatrooms. The case now returns to the tribunal for a full hearing on the merits, nearly a decade after proceedings began.
This is not an isolated enforcement action. Over the past decade, regulators in the United States, Britain, and Europe pursued similar allegations against major investment banks, resulting in combined settlements exceeding 11 billion dollars. Some of the world’s largest lenders paid substantial penalties to settle claims of systematic currency-rate manipulation by their traders.
Several banks implicated in the South African investigation have already resolved their exposure. Standard Chartered admitted to prohibited conduct and paid more than 42 million rand (approximately 2.6 million dollars) in 2023. The Commission also named Standard Chartered, Citibank, Absa, and Barclays as participants in the alleged scheme, but those institutions have either settled or obtained leniency arrangements.
Meanwhile, attempts to revive claims against a separate group of lenders, including Bank of America, Standard Bank, Nomura, Commerzbank, Nedbank, FirstRand, and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, did not succeed.
Reactions from the remaining defendants have been sparse. Investec stated it remains prepared to present its defense when the tribunal hears the new referral. JPMorgan, BNP Paribas, and HSBC declined to comment. Standard Americas did not respond to requests for comment.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling removes the legal obstacle that had blocked substantive examination of the claims. The Competition Tribunal will now determine whether the banks engaged in the alleged coordination during the specified period. How the tribunal handles a case of this scale, spanning multinational institutions and nearly six years of alleged conduct, will test the reach of South Africa’s competition enforcement against global financial players.