Nathalie Burrows, Editor at EBnet
I was privileged to attend this year’s PLA conference – where, once again, the conference committee was on point with thought-provoking and challenging topics, delivered by experts who offered not only high quality analysis of recent cases and legislative developments, but also practical application.
It’s impossible to distil two days into a short note like this one, but I’ll share a few of my personal highlights.
Fiduciary duties and climate change
With the enactment of the Climate Change Act in July 2024, more stakeholders are giving serious consideration to climate change litigation. Adv Hannine Drake (Pension Justice), Andrew Gilder (Climate Legal) and John Oliphant (Third Way Investment Partners) discussed the new perspectives and updates on this issue, particularly as it pertains to retirement funds.
The experts agreed that it’s only a matter of time before we see trustees being sued by fund members because they didn’t deliberately steer investments towards a sustainable future.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning: transforming financial services
Elaine Mbhalati (Standard Bank Group) and Chantal Manson (Liberty Group) explored how artificial intelligence and machine learning are revolutionising the financial services industry. They looked at the regulatory developments, the challenges and the opportunities presented to retirement funds that might adopt these technologies and considered factors like privacy and ethical implications. Are we heading into a world with AI trustees?
For interest, you can download the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies’ SA National AI Policy Framework here.
Both Elaine and Chantal will be guests on EBnet’s In the Moment webinar on Ethics and AI, on 13 May 2025, at 10am. You can register here.
Cybersecurity: funds and service providers
This session reiterated the importance of cyber-safety and hyper vigilance. Ntombi Mlambo (Mlambo & Associates) and Zwakele Mbanjwa (Michalsons) argued their points in the context of the Supreme Court of Appeal’s (SCA) decision in Howarden vs ENS.
A high level summary of the facts: Ms Howarden’s emails were hacked right at the point she needed to make payment for the transfer of a property. The bad actors changed the banking details in the email, and Ms Howarden paid the amount into the hacker’s account.
The SCA found that Hawarden failed to take reasonable steps to protect herself against a known risk despite prior warnings about Business Email Compromise (BEC) fraud. The court emphasised that Hawarden had the means to verify ENS’s bank details and chose to make a direct cash transfer without adequate safeguards, thereby bearing responsibility for her loss. The decision highlights the limits of duty of care in cases of pure economic loss due to cybercrime – and underscores the importance of personal responsibility in protecting against known cyber risks.
Conduct Standard relating to Pension Fund Benefit Administrators
Zareena Camroodien (FSCA) and Mpho Kgomongoe (Simeka Consultants and Actuaries) discussed the key provisions of the recently published draft Conduct Standard pertaining to 13B administrators, which includes incorporating the Treating Customers Fairly outcomes and conduct focus areas for benefit administrators. Interestingly, this includes Fit & Proper requirements for directors, senior managers including the responsible key person and head of a control function.
You can read the draft Conduct Standard here.
Address by the FSCA Deputy Commissioner
In her session wrapping up the conference, Astrid Ludin, the Deputy Commissioner at the FSCA, shared progress that has been made on terminating funds (slow progress, unfortunately) and unclaimed assets (expect engagement on this in the 3rd quarter of this year).
She confirmed that the results of the FSCA’s survey on two-pot implementation costs and fees will be published by the end of April, and will engage with funds and administrators to ensure that fees and costs are reasonable. (And this may result in a broader investigation of all costs and fees.)
The Deputy Commissioner also shared stats on those trustees who, as at 31 March 2025, had not completed the Trustee Toolkit (19%) as well as an update on S13A compliance. She ended off her session by confirming the FSCA’s Communication 6 of 2025 clarifying that late payment interest is to be calculated from the 1st of the month.
Thank you to the PLA for once again providing excellent input on topical legal issues affecting the financial services and retirement funds industries.
If you weren’t able to attend the two-day conference, you can catch downloads of all the presentations here.
ENDS
