Reading Time: 2 minutes

Court Ignores ABSA’s “can’t find the documents” argument

ABSA have become famous (in debt review related court cases) for referring to a fire (at Metro File or Docu File) which they often claim destroyed the originals of documents asked for by Debt Counsellors. Instead of providing the needed documents they will often times then simply add what they say are similar documents. This is actually allowed under law in some circumstances.

So, what’s the problem?

The problem that arises in some matters is that these similar documents sometimes say things contrary to what ABSA themselves have claimed in their summonses or application for summary judgment. For example they may include clauses that were in effect before or after the NCA came into effect while their papers argue the opposite.

In a recent case in the Gauteng High Court Judge Sutherland decided not to allow ABSA to get a summary judgement (their application was once again supported by substituted documents since the originals were lost in the fire) based on these types of documents.

OOPS: ABSA in the past have also supposedly reported 2 conflicting dates for the fire in documentation submitted at courts across the country.

Why Summary Judgment was refused

In these recent matters the Attorneys argued that in such a matter the original documents must be attached (or anyone could go around claiming a consumer owed them money and under any terms they wished) or at least more evidence is needed since the consumer dispute the rates or figures shown for various reasons. This is why the Judge ruled against granting summary judgment saying it should go to a full case so that all the evidence can be examined to give both parties a fair chance to have the facts examined.

MORE: Download the ruling here: Case Law ABSA v Jenzen & ABSA v Grobbelaar – Rule 18(6)

Can it be that this: ‘The dog ate my homework’ defense is not starting to fall flat finally?