Johannesburg – Standard Bank has this week filed an
explanatory affidavit in the legal dispute between several companies owned by
Oakbay and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Gordhan revealed earlier this year in a court affidavit
that R6.8 billion in payments made by Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, companies
they controlled and other individuals with the same surname had been reported
to the authorities as suspicious since 2012.
The affidavit, deposed by the bank’s general council Ian
Sinton and filed in the North Gauteng High Court, is in response to being cited
as a respondent in Gordhan’s affidavit.
Sinton notes that, until June this year, several Gupta
companies had accounts with the bank.
He writes that, upon the bank’s closure of these
accounts, it became the victim of a “wholesale public campaign” in which advertisements
were placed in the media.
In addition, writes Sinton, the bank was also subjected
to pressure from the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the
South African Communist Party.
Read also: Oakbay refutes Gordhan's application
Sinton alleges that Oakbay was behind this “unprecedented”
campaign.
In addition, Sinton says that threats of a judicial
enquiry into the bank’s closure of Gupta-owned company accounts should be
carried out as President Jacob Zuma has gone as far as to tell Parliament this
is under consideration.
Several banks and companies have cut ties this year with
Oakbay, without publicly disclosing their reasons. They included South Africa’s
top four banks: Standard Bank, Nedbank, Barclays Africa’s Absa, FNB and
Standard Bank.
Standard Bank says there is no legal basis for ministers
to intervene in affairs between it and its customers.
As a result, it wants Gordhan’s request granted as well
as costs.
Gordhan wants the courts to declare that the executive or
any member of cabinet is not legally empowered to intervene in banking
relationships between banks and their clients.
Oakbay has said “the application’s detail is
fundamentally flawed”.