A corporate sign at the entrance to Oakbay Investments' offices in Sandton. File picture: Siphiwe Sibeko/Independent Media A corporate sign at the entrance to Oakbay Investments' offices in Sandton. File picture: Siphiwe Sibeko/Independent Media
Johannesburg – Oakbay Investments has hit back at Finance
Minister Pravin Gordhan, claiming he deliberately went on a smear campaign
after it.
The Gupta-owned company was, late on Monday, responding
to Gordhan in what has become the latest in an ongoing public and legal battle
between the two.
The family’s comment comes after Gordhan’s Monday 103-page
affidavit dismissed Oakbay’s claim that banks shut accounts held by the
Gupta-owned company because he was plotting against the family as “simply
scurrilous”
Gordhan also said Oakbay’s response to his initial legal
challenge had no merit made the “belated” concession that the minister cannot
intervene in banks’ affairs.
The current legal debacle started last year when Gordhan
asked the courts to confirm that he had no power to intervene in banks’
relationships with its customers.
Several banks and companies cut ties last 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.
Read also: Oakbay
refutes Gordhan's application
Gordhan also notes Oakbay wants his application to fail,
even though it concedes that his position is correct in law.
Late on Monday, Oakbay said the affidavit was a “case of
reverse victim syndrome”.
“The applicant proactively came after us and smeared our
name with a flawed list of transactions - that he used his unique executive
power to obtain - and then questions the manner of our response to him. All
of this changes nothing. Our bank accounts remain closed and no evidence exists
to prove why that is the case. We look forward to clearing our name in court.”
Gordhan argued Oakbay’s allegations are spurious and have
no merit, and notes that the company did not challenge the validity of the
Financial Intelligence Centre certificate.
Gordhan’s affidavit follows a recent one in which Oakbay
said Gordhan’s initial application to the court was flawed.
Read also: Standard
Bank intervenes in Gordhan-Gupta fray
Last October, Gordhan revealed 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.
Oakbay has previously said all 72 transactions were
approved by the banks processing them.
Last April, the government told Gordhan and two other
cabinet ministers to contact the banks to discuss their decision to cease doing
business with the Gupta companies.
A document from Murray Mitchell, the director of the FIC,
listed 72 suspicious transaction reports implicating members of the Gupta
family and their companies, some of which comprised multiple entries for which
no amount was listed. He did not specify why the transactions were considered
suspect.
Gordhan asked the banks to provide confidential reports
made to the FIC in an open court, detailing suspicious transactions, to
determine if there was any substance to Oakbay’s claim that the banks acted
improperly.
Oakbay previously argued Gordhan’s initial “superfluous
application is riddled with factual and legal errors”. It said Gordhan could
simply have declined to do anything in the exercise of his legal discretion.