On 18 June, an article titled More debarments end up in court reported on two representatives who turned to the courts after being debarred by their former employer.
In an urgent application in the KZN High Court, they asked that the debarment be lifted so that they could continue working, pending a review of the barring decision. In terms of an order taken by consent before Judge Esther Steyn, the ban was lifted immediately. A panel of three senior advocates was tasked with probing the matter further to report back to the bank by the end June on the legality of its debarring decision.
The Mercury recently reported as follows, according to Legalbrief:
Two former Nedbank financial services consultants, who resorted to High Court litigation to stop the bank from disbarring them from the Financial Services Board’s register for allegedly stealing client information, have been barred again, says a report in The Mercury. This was confirmed by the bank and the chief executive of Anchor Securities, the company they joined earlier this year.
Paul Patterson and Peter Lavett – both managers in the private wealth division until their resignations in March this year – alleged in their urgent application in the KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) that Nedbank was trying to ruin them and stop them from working in the industry.
The bank claimed that in the run-up to their resignations they had tried to steal wealthy clients because they sent internal information to private e-mail addresses. They were both dismissed for the offences, although one had already left, and the bank, acting in the shoes of the FSB, disbarred them. This, they complained, was victimisation and an attempt to sabotage the new competition.
But, notes the report, the bank’s head of service and acquisition in the Private Wealth division, Brett Lambert, said their conduct ‘displayed a lack of honesty and integrity’ and they were not ‘fit and proper’ to carry on business. Nedbank’s group communications executive, Esme Arendse, said the recommendations of a panel of three senior advocates had been received and had been reviewed, and it had been decided to (de)bar them both again.
