South Africa's long-running "rand-rigging" saga is back in play. On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court revived the Competition Commission's case, clearing the way for a full hearing on allegations that traders at several major banks colluded to manipulate the U.S. dollar-rand market. The move keeps one of the country's biggest market-manipulation matters alive and sends key issues back to the Competition Tribunal for a full test on the merits.
The court's order allows the Competition Commission to pursue claims against six banks - BNP Paribas, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its U.S. arm JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., Investec, Standard Americas Incorporated, and HSBC Bank Plc - as reported by Reuters. The ruling keeps alive a case first sent to the Tribunal in 2017 and reopens litigation that has already wound its way through multiple courts over several years of appeals.
What the court decided
In a set of opinions that fit together like a legal jigsaw puzzle, the Constitutional Court partly upheld the Competition Commission's appeal and sent parts of the dispute back for further procedural steps and a merits hearing. The written judgment sets aside portions of earlier rulings that had narrowed the Commission's reach and clarifies how the regulator is allowed to proceed from here. The full judgment and orders are available on the court's website; the Constitutional Court of South Africa published the text of the decision.
Background
The Competition Commission first referred the complaint to the Competition Tribunal in 2017, alleging that traders coordinated activity in the U.S. dollar-rand market from about 2007 through 2013, often using private online chatrooms to communicate. That timeline and the broad scope of the referral have sparked repeated procedural battles over the years, as the case moved up the court ladder, according to coverage of the litigation history by IOL.
Settlements and who has already settled
Not every bank named in the original papers is still fighting. Several institutions struck settlement deals or secured leniency a while ago. In one example, the Commission announced that Standard Chartered admitted prohibited conduct and agreed to pay about R42.7 million in 2023, while other respondents either settled or obtained immunity earlier in the probe, according to Business Day.
Legal stakes
The Commission has previously pushed for administrative penalties of up to 10% of a firm's annual turnover, which is the maximum allowed under the Competition Act, and that framework will be central if the Tribunal eventually finds anti-competitive conduct. How South Africa's competition rules apply to foreign banks and what kinds of remedies are appropriate are among the core legal questions now sitting on the Tribunal's plate, as highlighted in earlier coverage by the Mail & Guardian.
Why this matters
The outcome could set an important precedent on how far South African regulators can reach into cross-border trading behavior that affects the rand, with potential consequences for global players active in emerging-market currencies. Observers are also lining it up against earlier international enforcement waves over foreign-exchange misconduct, which produced hefty settlements and regulatory penalties in other markets. Legal and enforcement summaries tracking those wider forex investigations point out that regulators in the U.S., U.K. and EU have previously extracted multi-billion-dollar penalties from banks for related conduct, as noted in a review at the USC Gould School of Law.
The banks named in the revived case either declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and the Constitutional Court's order now hands the matter back to the Competition Tribunal, where the Commission's allegations will be tested on their merits, Reuters reported. The Tribunal will determine the next procedural moves and any hearing schedule once the parties have completed their filings.
