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Johannesburg - The lawyer for Gupta-linked Oakbay Investments has denied that 72 of the company’s transactions, which were flagged by the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), are suspicious.
Oakbay Investments filed court papers in the North Gauteng High Court on Friday in response to a bid by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan launched in October last year.
READ: Gordhan told big business to ‘clip the Guptas’ wings’ – affidavit
Last year, Gordhan approached the court seeking protection against being forced by the Guptas to intervene in the matter of the bank account closures.
As part of the court application, Gordhan listed a Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) report detailing how the Guptas’ businesses made R6.8bn in “suspicious and unusual transactions”.
South Africa’s big four banks also shuttered Oakbay’s accounts last year.
In court papers, the banks listed concerns about the Guptas, ranging from risks of money-laundering and suspicious transactions to the family being politically exposed persons.
But Oakbay Investments’ lawyer, Gert van der Merwe, told Fin24 by phone on Friday that there was nothing wrong with the 72 transactions in question.
READ: Oakbay CEO slams bank risk fears on Gupta accounts
"Let me tell you the following on record, my firm instructions are: Not one single transaction of those listed by the minister will show any impropriety,” Van der Merwe said.
"It's not suspicious; it's not fraudulent. What had to happen is FIC investigate and then they will report that to either the Hawks or whatever crime intelligence, or whatever you intend to report it to, but they never did,” Van der Merwe said.
Van der Merwe said that Gordhan didn’t have to append the FIC certificate to get relief on the matter.
The lawyer hit out at Gordhan's inclusion of the FIC document.
“He decided to append a certificate with no information and then there's an innuendo that the family or the group acted improperly and that is our concern,” said Van der Merwe.
"It was unnecessary and it was even mischievous.
"What you'll find in our papers is that we ask that any reference to that certificate is struck from the papers,” Van der Merwe added.
He went on to tell Fin24 international investigative firm, Nardello & Co, couldn’t “find any improper transactions” and that “many of these transactions are not even related to the group”.
"Normal people get reported on a daily basis. 9.4m transactions ... have been reported to the FIC,” Van der Merwe said.
The Guptas and Oakbay also applied to the FIC for more information on the transactions but didn’t receive further feedback, said Van der Merwe.
READ: Guptas ask FIC for more info over 'suspicious' R6.8bn
In court papers on Friday, Oakbay asked the court to "decline to grant the relief" sought by Gordhan and to dismiss the minister's application with costs.
Oakbay, in the affidavit, also accused Gordhan of allegedly launching the court bid for political gain.
The FIC’s flagged Gupta transactions
According to section 29 of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica), the FIC by law is privy to details on all bank transactions that raise concern over the purpose of such transactions.
Suspicious and unusual transactions, as defined by the act, include transfers that may relate to the financing of terrorism, the evasion or attempted evasion of the paying of tax, or transfers that have "no apparent business or lawful purpose".
Listen to Fin24's Gareth van Zyl interviewing Gert van der Merwe:
According the FIC report included in Gordhan’s court papers, the first of the red-flagged transactions was a series of transfers to or from an account held by Ajay Gupta between December 2012 and February 2014, totalling just over R80m.
A R1.3bn transaction involving the bank account of the mining rehabilitation fund for Optimum - the coal mine the Guptas and President Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane had bought - had also drawn the attention of the FIC.
