When Enforcement Overreaches: What A Recent FICA Judgment Means For Sanctions

A recent Gauteng High Court judgment has reaffirmed that regulatory enforcement and fair process must go hand in hand. The court upheld an appeal by Len Dekker Attorneys Incorporated against administrative sanctions imposed under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act (“FICA”), after finding that the Financial Intelligence Centre (“FIC”) had overreached in the way it had  calculated the penalty. At the centre of the case was a simple but significant question: could the FIC calculate sanctions by counting years of alleged non-compliance from before 19 December 2022, when it only became the supervisory authority for legal practitioners from that date? The court’s answer was no.

According to a Moneyweb report of 7 April 2026, the law firm had been sanctioned in an amount of close to ZAR235 000 for non-compliance with certain FICA provisions. The FIC’s approach was to include alleged non-compliance dating back to 2017. The High Court found that this had had  a material effect on the