The Supreme Court of Appeal today dismissed an appeal by Mr Bredenkamp and two companies and a trust in which he has interests against a judgment of the high court. The appellants had sought an order preventing the Standard bank of closing their accounts with the Bank. The high court had dismissed the application. It was accepted that the Bank had, in terms of its contract with the appellants and in terms of the common law the right to close the accounts with reasonable notice.
However, the appellants contended that the closing was unfair because it was unlikely that they would be able to obtain other banking facilities. They relied on a Constitutional Court judgment for the proposition that a party is not entitled to use its contractual rights if it would be unfair to the other party. The court held that the appellants had misconstrued the CC judgment and, in any event, the closing of the accounts was not unfair under the circumstances of the case.