Bank licence not to be taken lightly, says Treasury in Vardospan fight
Approving a bank licence is not to be taken lightly and spending seven months mulling over the matter is not unreasonable, the Treasury has argued in its opposition to the Gupta-aligned Vardospan Limited’s urgent court bid to fast-track the process of acquiring Habib Bank. Treasury director-general Lungisa Fuzile put this argument in an affidavit submitted to the High Court in Pretoria. "The applicant and Pitcairns seek … to impose their own deadlines ... on the respondents who are tasked with important decisions which impact the public. These are decisions that cannot be taken lightly," Fuzile said in the affidavit. "By way of illustration, section 37 (2)(a) of the [Banks] Act ordinarily contemplates a minimum period of four years (subject to a fresh regulatory decision by the registrar or the minister after each of these years) in which a person can proceed from holding less than 15% of the shares or voting rights of a bank or controlling company to the point at which their holdin...
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