All the law firms that he had approached refused to take on his matter on the basis that they are part of the the bank’s panel of attorneys and that they are conflicted in terms of their service level agreements (“SLAs) with Standard Bank. Further, the commission established that the practice of restrictive SLAs for conveyancing services extended to other major banks, namely, Investec, FNB and Nedbank.
The engagements between the commission and the four banks, it was agreed that contractual clauses that prevented law firms appointed to provide conveyancing services from acting against the banks on any matter should be removed. These exclusionary clauses created barriers for small and particularly firms owned by historically disadvantaged persons to expand in the market. This is evidenced by various complaints the commission received over the years regarding the issuing of conveyance instructions by banks.