Rand Merchant, Nedbank charged for currency manipulation

Rand Merchant Bank and Nedbank are among 28 international local banks that have been charged by South Africa’s antitrust authorities for manipulating the rand exchange rate.

The Competition Commission filed its new charge sheet against the banks with the Competition in line with an earlier ruling, it said today 2nd June 2020.

Colluding to fix prices, divide markets in the rand/dollar exchange which goes back as far as 2015 were the case brought against the banks.

Last year, the banks appear to have won a partial victory when the Competition Appeal Court ruled that the commission had to file a new charge sheet that provided additional clarification.

In February, however, the CAC dismissed an appeal by several banks that sought an order dismissing the Competition’s case against them. The banks had argued that SA’s competition authorities did not have jurisdiction over their activities that took place outside of the country.

The Commission said in a statement that the new referral provides more details on the operations of the currency manipulation cartel, its effects on South Africa and expands the scope of the prosecution to include five more banks such as FirstRand and Standard Americas.