FNB demanding that lawyers break the law "because it's their procedure"

We’ve banked with FNB for 42 years and have an attorneys trust account that not only gets audited by our auditors, but also by the Law Society and our various clients on a regular basis. • When a debtor made a short EFT “push” payment on an expired settlement quote, did not receive a paid up letter and made a false claim of ***** just to be vindictive because she didn’t get her way, • FNB’s ***** department did not bother to ask this claimant for proof or supporting documents to substantiate her claim ( as required by law that he who claims, must provide proof ) • But rather placed the impossible onus on us, the attorneys, to prove a negative • Demanded that we supply documentation and information which is protected by the attorney client privilege and in contravention of the POPI Act. • FNB can and have frozen our accounts without proper cause previously, they explained that they can do it again pending their investigation and • When asked why they expect us to break the law, their answer was “because it’s FNB procedure”.

We can understand that FNB may investigate whether or not a “pull” transaction such as authenticated collections were authorized or not, but this was a “push” payment made willingly by the debtor based on a legally binding contract.

Surely FNB should consider changing their procedures to rather ask the claimant for proof, before wasting the attorney’s time to try and prove a negative. FNB is simply taking the word of a stranger without proper cause and putting our business at risk, preventing us from honoring our contracts, SLA’s, the law and our fiduciary obligations.

If this was indeed ***** ( and not just a balance dispute ) the necessary governing bodies i.e. The South African Police Services or Law Society can and will investigate. • With it being a normal balance dispute, the debtor could’ve easily contacted either us or our client for a detailed statement and • We feel strongly that FNB has no right to allow any Tom, **** or Harry to effectively freeze our accounts based on false claims without proper cause or supporting documents and • Then further frustrate us and ***** our time ( which is our commodity ) to disprove the false claim and forcing us to break the law.

We have logged queries with various FNB representatives and departments, and pending their written feedback, we will, irrespective of the outcome, proceed with an ombudsman complaint.