Steel giant Mittal came under pressure from academia and the government recently in its continuing battle over steel prices. Mittal reacted with legal and tactical aggression in the case of the former and with a mild but expected sulk to the latter. The battle is with Harmony and Durban Roodepoort Deep, purporting to be acting on behalf of a large portion of the South African economy, at the Competition Tribunal.

After 120 years of convincing companies of the merits of listing and being publicly traded, the JSE will on June 5 list on its own main board, joining peers including the London Stock Exchange. The move is the culmination of about five years of restructuring the bourse.

One of the more eyebrow-raising, intriguing executive moves of recent times has been that of Peter Moyo, who last November gave up his position as deputy MD of Old Mutual South Africa to become Alexander Forbes’s Africa MD, in charge of 14 countries. The move was intriguing because many saw it as Moyo turning his back on an opportunity to head OM, a brand-name monolith.

First National Bank (FNB), the country’s largest vehicle and one of the four largest retail banks, is being sued for R145-million over one of banking’s most innovative products. Leon Parkin, a Rustenburg-based businessman, claims that FNB stole his idea for InContact, a free SMS service that informs cheque account, credit and debit card customers of all transactions as they happen.