Convicted German confidence trickster Jurgen Harksen’s controversial senior counsel Johan van der Berg was struck from the roll of advocates in the Cape High Court on Monday.
This was on five charges brought by the General Council of the Bar, including excessive fees he made from the Harksen saga.
According to a judgement handed down by Judge Hennie Erasmus, Van der Berg received amounts of R250 000, £25 000 and $22-million.
The charges Van der Berg faced in the application to ban him from the Bar, were making a false affidavit, the suppression of truth, accepting a mandate that involved making a false affidavit, lying to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and charging excessive fees.
Erasmus said Van der Berg, in his dealings with Harksen, failed to conduct himself with the high standards of integrity and honesty required of an advocate, in that he knowingly drew up affidavits containing false allegations and made false statements in notarial documents.
He also made false allegations in an affidavit to the Western Cape DPP, the judge said.
On the charge of receiving excessive fees, Van der Berg also failed to receive the money via an instructing attorney as he was obliged to do. Erasmus said Van der Berg also received instructions directly from his client, instead of through an instructing attorney, and undertook to receive money on behalf of his client without having a trust account.
The judge said Van der Berg’s conduct, in pursuance of a mandate, disgraced the legal fraternity in that he was knowingly party to a fraudulent scheme.
Erasmus said a reprimand would have been appropriate on less serious charges, but dishonesty was irreconcilable with the high standards of integrity demanded of advocates. For this the only appropriate sanction was to be struck from the roll.
He said the court was aware of the devastation this would cause Van der Berg, but the court had a duty to uphold the professional standards of the legal fraternity, and to ensure that the public were not exposed to advocates who lacked these qualities.
Harksen, who was extradited back to Germany in 2002 and is now serving an 81-month prison sentence, has described in a book how he hired a host of working-class South Africans to act the part of American bankers as he met German ”clients” in luxurious Cape Town restaurants.
Though the actors spoke with South African accents, the German investors were fooled into believing that Harksen was an international financier, he says in the autobiography, How I Got Their Money Off the Rich: The Career of a Confidence Trickster. – Sapa