JSE wins interdict, as Mantengu claims ‘unlawful gag’

The JSE has scalped first blood in a high-stakes battle with chrome miner Mantengu, winning an interdict in Johannesburg’s high court on Friday to prevent its CEO Mike Miller from claiming the stock exchange is complicit to an immense conspiracy. 

This was the first court clash between Africa’s largest stock exchange and Miller, who said he had screenshots of emails which proved that staff and directors of the JSE were involved in manipulating stocks and warned other companies to “think very, very carefully” about listing on the exchange.  

Zarina Bassa and Ian Kirk, two of the JSE directors named by Miller, told Currency that those emails were “fabricated”, while the exchange said in court papers that either he or their experts are lying to shareholders the public. 

On Friday, the High Court granted the urgent interdict, pending a full hearing. The order specified that Miller and Mantengu are “interdicted from publishing allegations that the [JSE], any of its directors, or employees are complicit in unlawful activities relating to the manipulation of … shares”. 

But in a continuation of the animosity that has characterised this case, neither party plans to stop there. 

Acrimonious

Immediately after the interdict was granted on Friday, the JSE said it would “institute an action for defamation” against Mantengu, Miller and anyone else who published the “false allegations”. 

“The JSE has obtained expert forensic evidence that the alleged e-mails relied on by Mantengu and Miller are either fake or they do not originate from the e-mail addresses of the other individuals that were falsely accused,” it said. 

But Miller also hit back immediately after the ruling, saying he would be asking for leave to appeal a ruling which “unlawfully gags” him from speaking about a conspiracy which goes to the heart of the integrity of the local market. 

In his application for leave to appeal, Miller said the judge “erred and grossly misdirected” himself by making an order on the merits against the applicants without hearing the matter on the merits.   

Miler said he was not given an opportunity to address the courts on the merits of the case, since this was never argued.  

Equally, he says his “right to freedom of expression” was infringed as Mantengu is now barred from “publishing any allegations that the [JSE], its directors or employees, are complicit in unlawful activities relating to the manipulation of the [Mantengu’s] shares, regardless of whether the allegations … are true and in the public interest”. 

This means that even if “clear evidence emerges” showing share price manipulation, Mantengu would still be interdicted from speaking about this thanks to the court order, he says. 

Miller’s claims, which date back to 2023, are fantastical. He says there is a “syndicate” made up of “possibly hundreds of people” working in shadowy corners to drive down stock prices to a point where they can take over companies and strip their assets. 

But a large part of the argument revolved around how legitimate the emails he obtained are.  

Supposedly sent between Bassa, Kirk and financial commentator The Finance Ghost, these emails spoke of a plan to drive down share prices, apparently using trading accounts. One screenshot said the account “must look organic, not staged”, while another spoke of how Mantengu’s share price was stabilising, so the conspirators must “please do something”. 

All of the parties deny sending these emails — and this is backed up by forensic evidence from Bassa’s email provider Vox Telecom, as well as a forensic firm called Blue Top Consulting which said screenshots of emails are “easily manipulated”. 

Blue Top says the email account supposedly linked to Ian Kirk actually belongs to another Ian Kirk at the Pennsylvania-based company USM. Robert Peché, the chartered accountant behind the Finance Ghost, last week told Currency that that “the only conspiracy exists in Mike Miller’s head”. 

While Miller said the “metadata” of the emails had helped reveal the conspiracy, the JSE’s director of issuer services, Andre Visser said this wasn’t possible, since “the hardcopy of the email will not have metadata”. 

_{Top image: Rawpixel/Currency collage.}