The Financial Services Tribunal (FST) has dismissed two applications seeking reconsideration of the Financial Sector Conduct Authority’s final withdrawal of Banxso (Pty) Ltd’s financial services provider licence.
The Tribunal decided the applicants did not have the legal standing (locus standi) to bring the challenge. A company in provisional liquidation cannot be represented by private parties in respect of its assets, and the four individuals who sought relief were not, in the Tribunal’s view, “persons aggrieved” under the Financial Sector Regulation Act (FSRA).
The FST handed down its decision on 11 December, two days after the FSCA announced one of its largest enforcement actions – a combined R2-billion administrative penalty against Banxso and its directors Harel Adam Sekler and Warwick David Sneider. A fine of R16 million was imposed on the company for other contraventions of financial sector laws.
Read: FSCA slaps Banxso and directors with record R2bn fine
Additional penalties were imposed on Manuel de Andrade (R20m), Mohammed Bux (R10m), and Henry James Simpson (R5m), along with lengthy debarments – 30 years for Sekler, Sneider, De Andrade, and Bux, and 10 years for Simpson.
The Authority said its investigation found that Banxso and its key persons misappropriated client funds, provided misleading information, promised unrealistic returns, and failed to act in the best interests of clients.
The FSCA notified Banxso and the affected individuals in May this year of the Authority’s prima facie findings and its intention to impose the sanctions, the FST’s decision stated.
Licence withdrawal and provisional liquidation
The FSCA announced in October 2024 that it had provisionally withdrawn Banxso’s FSP licence after receiving complaints and investigating preliminary concerns about the online trading platform’s conduct.
The provisional withdrawal was grounded in a range of regulatory concerns: the FSCA cited indications of aggressive sales techniques; promises of unrealistic returns; a failure to conduct basic risk assessments; and material losses suffered by clients. It also referenced the company’s possible association with online deepfake advertisements that purportedly promoted investment opportunities and featured images or voices of well-known personalities – claims that Banxso has consistently denied.
The FSCA finalised its withdrawal of Banxso’s licence in July 2025. The Authority said it had considered Banxso’s submissions in response to the provisional withdrawal but remained of the view that the company had materially contravened various financial sector laws, and it no longer met the fit and proper requirements to be an FSP.
Read: Authority acts against online trading platforms
In August 2025, the High Court in Cape Town, acting in a civil application brought by an individual investor who alleged significant losses on the Banxso platform, granted a provisional winding-up order against the company.
Read: Banxso will contest provisional liquidation order
Provisional liquidation places a company’s assets and affairs under the control of a court-appointed provisional liquidator. Although the order is still provisional and subject to a return date for final determination, it significantly curtails the ability of directors and shareholders to act in relation to the company’s assets or litigation.
Locus standi takes centre stage
The reconsideration applications, filed in September this year, sought to set aside the FSCA’s final withdrawal of Banxso’s licence and remit the matter to the regulator for fresh consideration.
The two applications were brought by:
- Banxso, represented by counsel; and
- Sekler, Sneider, De Andrade, and Simpson.
The Tribunal heard both applications on 8 December, a day before the FSCA announced the fines and debarments.
The FST’s nine-page decision did not address the merits of the FSCA’s investigative findings but a procedural question: who is entitled under the FSRA to seek reconsideration of an FSCA decision?
The Tribunal’s jurisdiction over reconsideration depends on whether an applicant is a “person aggrieved” by a defined “decision”. The Act differentiates between decisions of a general or policy nature and those targeted at a specific person; the latter are the proper subjects of reconsideration.
The FST panel – chaired by Judge Louis Harms – said this statutory framework must be applied purposively to prevent open-ended challenges to administrative decisions.
The panel’s decision addressed the related question of locus standi as follows:
Banxso’s application
Banxso was placed under provisional liquidation in August. The provisional liquidator, although aware of the Tribunal proceedings, had not joined them. Banxso’s application was launched “in its own name” by persons who, the Tribunal found, were no longer legally able to act for the company in relation to its assets, because those assets and the exclusive power to deal with them rested with the provisional liquidator. The Tribunal therefore concluded that the company’s application, as brought, lacked legal standing.
The individual applicants’ application
Sekler, Sneider, De Andrade, and Simpson argued they were “materially affected” and “aggrieved” because the FSCA’s findings affected their commercial prospects, reputations, and exposed them to debarment and penalties.
The Tribunal analysed the statutory term “person aggrieved” in light of precedent and concluded the individuals’ asserted indirect financial and reputational interests did not make them proper applicants for reconsideration of a decision directed at Banxso. In short, the findings made in respect of the company did not, by themselves, bind the individuals as if they were “specific person” decisions directed at them.
As a result, the FST dismissed both applications.
