Amy Musgrave and Renée Bonorchis
24 October 2008
Johannesburg — AFFILIATES of the Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) will hold a picket outside the Johannesburg High Court on Monday in support of a R4bn legal claim against Investec for the alleged mismanagement of pension funds.
The South African Equity Workers Association (Saewa) and the Electrical Contractors Association of SA are two of a number of trade unions and employee organisations whose members belong to pension funds that have instituted legal action against Investec Employment Benefits (IEB).
On Monday, Investec will make an application to the court for the final transfer of the IEB's funds to Capital Alliance, in terms of Investec's sale of pension funds. The union is opposing the application, because it is afraid that if it wins its case against IEB, which is likely to be heard at the end of next year, there would be no money left to pay the R4bn . The company has said that if this happens, its unidentified insurer would pay the money .
"They are busy asset-stripping the company ... and at the end of the day, they would have no assets to pay us," Saewa assistant general secretary Deon van Deventer said yesterday.
He said this was the first time that such an application had been opposed since the 1980s.
Fedusa general secretary Dennis George warned that the federation would take various actions against Investec, including the picket, as part of its campaign to support Saewa. Protesters planned to hand over a memorandum to an Investec representative at the protest, demanding an irrevocable guarantee that the R4bn be paid back to the electrical and building pension funds.
He said Fedusa would brief the International Trade Union Confederation on the matter on December 16, and would call for an international boycott "not to put any more money into Investec". The federation would also meet Finance Minister Trevor Manuel on November 3.
IEB was liable for Fedsure's mishandling of Saewa's pension fund monies. Investec bought Fedsure when it was poised to fail in 2001.
Ciaran Whelan, head of group risk at Investec Bank, said yesterday that the company did not believe that the figure was correct, or that there was any merit in the case. He said when the unions first raised the issue, the company answered their complaint in October 2001. "We gave detailed reasons, but they didn't like them."
He said the company then proposed arbitration, but the unions refused. Van Deventer said they refused because Investec refused to hand over the necessary documents to prepare for arbitration.
Whelan said: "As Investec, we don't want to litigate. We're trying to manage pension fund money. Sometimes you need bloody noses before people come to their senses."
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