The Competition Tribunal’s hearing of banks accused of colluding in the foreign exchange market, which was scheduled to start on January 24, has been delayed until further notice.
The tribunal said in a statement on Wednesday that the Competition Commission had requested a postponement of the case when it submitted a supplementary affidavit on December 21, saying it intended to join new applicants.
Though the case has been postponed, the tribunal will hold a pre-hearing on January 24 to discuss new directions for the case. The pre-hearing will be closed to the public.
In February 2017, the commission said its investigation into currency trading had uncovered evidence that 17 banks were involved in price fixing, and referred them to the tribunal for prosecution.
"The commission found that, from at least 2007, the respondents had a general agreement to collude on prices for bids, offers and bid-offer spreads for the spot trades in relation to currency trading involving the dollar-rand currency pair. Further, the commission found that the respondents manipulated the price of bids and offers through agreements to refrain from trading and creating fictitious bids and offers at particular times," the commission said in February.
The commission’s list of accused featured a who’s who of major international banks: Wall Street’s Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan Chase; France’s largest bank BNP Paribas; Japan’s Nomura; Germany’s Commerzbank; Switzerland’s Credit Suisse; the UK’s HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and Macquarie.
Local banks included Absa, along with various divisions of its former UK parent Barclays, Standard Bank, and Investec.
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