Cape Town – The Gupta family's Oakbay had hounded him to use his political position to prevail on banks to re-open the company's bank accounts, lawyers for Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan have contended in heads of argument in the case in which he is seeking a declaratory order that this is not allowed.
"Indeed, it both inopportuned and badgered him," the 50-page document released by National Treasury on Friday stressed.
Gordhan's lawyers deal extensively with Oakbay's reason for opposing such an order, namely that there is no factual dispute as it had accepted that he was neither obliged nor allowed to intervene in the relationships between banks and their clients. They say this is patently untrue, as evidenced by letters he received from the company between April and June last year.
"There can be no serious suggestion that the minister was not subjected to pressure both unprecedented and outside the law by the Gupta-controlled Oakbay companies to intervene."
In its court papers Oakbay has indicated that it does not oppose the declaratory order sought by Gordon on the basis of legal principle but because he had been plotting politically against the company since last year.
Gordhan said the company's correspondence make a mockery of its argument, as it did in fact seek his political assistance regarding the banks' decision and while doing so over several months, never levelled such an accusation of conspiracy but in fact lauded his work in his current position and in the liberation struggle.
Oakbay, in their correspondence, had stressed that he was the political head of the economy, he noted. "Politics were indeed already invoked in Oakbay's first letter to the Minister, dated 8 April 2016."
Gordhan's court application has revealed that the Financial Intelligence Centre flagged 72 transactions by the Guptas's business interests as suspect and seen him argue that the banks acted as they did because of the family's political exposure.