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By Nathan Adams 
5h ago
Cape Town – Online currency trader JP Markets bank accounts remain in limbo and now liquidators appointed by the court to liquidate the business also have no access to company funds.
JP Markets was founded by businessman Justin Paulsen and licensed by the Financial Service Conduct Authority (FSCA) to provide online deposit and derivative advisory services for online forex traders. The company’s Financial Service Provider (FSP) license was provisionally suspended on June 19, 2020 and the company was liquidated on September 7, 2020 by order of the South Gauteng Superior Court.
One of the first things the FSCA did in July was to request that the company’s bank accounts be frozen and the court ordered that pending the outcome of the legal proceedings was the correct thing to do. According to court documents that the FSCA has filed in the South Gauteng Superior Court, JP Markets had several bank accounts totaling almost R280 million.
Paulsen’s legal team has now argued that his appeal of the liquidation order has yet to be granted or heard and that the liquidators should not have access to the money or bank accounts of either company.
Paulsen’s attorney, Darren Hanekom, has contacted all the banks where JP Markets had trading accounts and argued that the liquidators should not have access to the funds. In a letter sent to FNB, Hanekom writes: “By denying our client access to their bank accounts, you are perpetuating the illegal conduct and causing our client to suffer harm.
“There is no legal basis on which you can deny our client access to their bank accounts at their respective institutions.”
He concludes: “We therefore urgently request that you immediately grant our client the necessary access. We also request that all communication and access granted to said bank accounts to the alleged liquidators immediately cease ”.
The liquidators claim that they have not made an urgent attempt to access JP Markets’ bank accounts. Corne Van Den Heever, Tegogo Malatjie and Edwin Buys-Du Plessis were appointed by South Gauteng as joint liquidators of JP Markets. In response to a media inquiry, the joint liquidators said: “That order was granted by the FSCA on July 21 and that order says, please freeze bank accounts until these procedures are completed. If he (Paulsen) appeals and reopens the case, then the banks should stick to that … no one is forcing the banks to pay the money into an equity account, but they have agreed to comply with the request to freeze the assets. accounts. “
One of the liquidators who did not want to be identified said that it has not been confirmed whether JP Markets was solvent or insolvent but that things are not looking good for the future: “If they have negotiated illegally since June 2019 and I open the claim process and all these traders who think they have been trading legally have claims for damages against JP Markets, you will never be solvent. “
This further delays the claim process for anyone who was a JP Markets client and wants to be reimbursed or to file a claim for damages as a result of improper trading.
Paulsen’s request for permission to appeal the final liquidation of JP Markets will be heard in South Gauteng Court on Thursday (October 22).
Argus weekend
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