JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s competition watchdog denied on Wednesday withdrawing charges against some of the 14 banks accused of rigging the rand currency, its spokesman said.
Bloomberg reported late on Tuesday that the Competition Commission would revoke its complaint against some of the lenders.
“It’s not true, we are fairly content with how our litigation is going and we’re not going to withdraw charges against any bank,” the Commission’s spokesman Sipho Ngwenya said.
The Commission is seeking to impose fines on more than a dozen local and foreign banks that it alleges colluded to coordinate trading in the rand and the U.S. dollar.
The case was referred to the Competition Tribunal, which holds hearings on anti-trust matters before making a ruling.
The watchdog began its investigation in April 2015, joining global probe into the manipulation of foreign exchange rates that has led to big banks paying more that $10 billion in settlements.
(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng, editing by Louise Heavens)
