DOUGLAS VS ABSA: Abusive Bank Practices

ABSA  – Thousands of Victims of Unethical Repossession

Peter Blundell:

You have been having some trouble with the banks. I believe ABSA is involved. What could you tell as succinctly as possible, what the issues are?

Douglas Shaw:

As many viewers will know, I’m and advocate and somebody that represents people against banks when the banks come and try and take their houses or any other problems with banks. What has happened recently, is that ABSA bank, in particular, have been trying to get costs orders against me which they have finally succeeded in doing. Cost orders are often asked for in court but are very rarely granted. Courts don’t normally award cost orders against practitioners. So the bottom line is that they got an order against me last year and I am now going to have to pay two hundred and sixty thousand rand if we don’t manage to get this reduced in some way, to ABSA bank which obviously makes it very difficult for me to continue if I obviously continue to get these types of orders against me, then I wouldn’t be able to defend people against the banks, which is exactly what’s happened to other people who defended people against the banks in the past. So they have been intimidated by the banks, from being able to… the banks have got orders against them and then they can’t act anymore. Now obviously when I get a cost or any type of order against me by a high court judge, I’ve got to look at what I’ve been doing, and say, “Ok, I’ve got to change that and do things differently”. That’s certainly not the issue and would always do that, but there are also questions whether the cost or the system can be used to intimidate practitioners…