Is asking the Joburg High Court to force the company and its CEO to hand over emails implicating the exchange in market abuse. From Moneyweb.
The JSE is asking the Johannesburg High Court to compel junior miner Mantengu Mining to hand over emails that will allow it to investigate allegations that the exchange or its directors or staff are in any way involved in manipulating its share price.
It is also asking the court to interdict Mantengu or its CEO Mike Miller from publishing allegations of market abuse. The exchange says it wants the emails so that it can conduct a full and thorough investigation.
Read:
FSCA finds no evidence of naked shorting at Mantengu Mining
JSE issues cease and desist to Mantengu over share manipulation claims
Mantengu and Miller have alleged that they are in possession of emails purporting to show complicity of JSE staff or directors in the manipulation of its share price.
Mantengu first went public with its claims of share price manipulation in February 2024, bypassing the JSE Sens news service by alleging a group of individuals were involved in manipulating its share price lower. The JSE at the time refused to allow the claims to be published on Sens, saying this violated its listings rules and the matter was already under investigation.
Claims of illegal shorting
The company claimed its shares were being depressed by illegal ‘naked shorts’, which involves selling shares that the trader does not own or has not borrowed, with the aim of making a profit by buying the shares back at a lower price.
Mantengu has levelled its accusations at several individuals, including its own former finance director Ulrich Bester, as well as JSE staff and Liberty Coal (where Bester is now chief financial officer). All, including the JSE, have repeatedly denied any involvement.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), as the market regulator, investigated and found the claims were unsupported by the evidence.
What followed was a feast for the lawyers, with two unsuccessful court applications by Mantengu to compel the JSE to publish its allegations, a cease-and-desist demand from the JSE to Mantengu, and successful interdicts obtained by Liberty Coal and Bester to stop further publication of defamatory statements.
Now it’s the JSE’s turn …
Its court filings provide further background to the dispute, with an affidavit by Andries Visser, the JSE director in charge of issuer regulation, arguing that it had asked Mantengu for evidence of emails proving its staff were complicit in share price manipulation, only to be told it was not “pragmatic” or “sensible” to do so.
The JSE says it will file affidavits from all directors and staff implicated to confirm that they are not complicit in, or involved in, any form of market manipulation.
“As things stand, there is nothing. We do not have any evidence or facts to use in an investigation – it is only Mr Miller’s allegations, we have asked the directors and our staff to respond to it, and they have denied it in the strongest possible terms,” says the JSE in a statement to Moneyweb.
Read:
Who’s shorting Mantengu Mining? [Aug 2024]
Mantengu Mining doubles in price after sounding alarm on market manipulation [Feb 2024]
Mantengu Mining overrides JSE by issuing public warning on share manipulation [Feb 2024]
“In refusing to provide copies of the emails to the JSE, Mantengu is acting to frustrate the JSE’s statutory obligations, including its duty to ensure that the South African financial markets are fair, efficient and transparent,” Visser deposes.
Irony
If the emails contain evidence of market abuse by JSE staff, Mantengu’s refusal to hand this over undermines the integrity of the market and the reputation of the JSE – the very thing Mantengu complains of, says Visser.
“Absent production of the primary facts to prove the truth of the allegations, Mantengu and Mr Miller should be interdicted from repeating those allegations,” adds Visser in his affidavit.
The JSE previously investigated Mantengu’s claims and advised the company to bring its concerns to the attention of the FSCA.
The JSE says it has deeper insight into trades on the exchange than Mantengu and concluded that the trades in question did not warrant further investigation.
It is this deeper level access to trading data that prompted the JSE to come to a different conclusion on the impugned trades.
The FSCA concluded that the trades of which Mantengu complained were “lawful security transactions in the ordinary course of business”.
In June 2025, Mantengu won an interdict in the Joburg High Court preventing the FSCA from releasing its report.
Criminal complaint
Mantengu then published a summary of a criminal complaint to the Hawks, claiming that a syndicate allegedly led by Bester was preparing to manipulate Mantengu’s share price to disrupt its acquisition of Blue Ridge Platinum, which was subsequently acquired from Sibanye-Stillwater and Imbani. In that complaint, several JSE executives are named.
In May, the JSE issued a cease-and-desist demand to Mantengu, stating that the company may have used the Sens platform “as a means to spread the false allegations as far and wide as possible”.
It also demanded that Mantengu cease defaming the exchange, issue a formal apology and retraction of its statements implicating the JSE, and remove the Sens statement detailing its criminal complaint.
‘Motive’ for manipulation
The alleged manipulation of Mantengu’s share price is regarded by the company as an attempt to foil its expansion plans.
In January 2024, Mantengu received approval for a R500 million equity facility from an offshore funder, GEM, which allows it to issue shares for cash as it is drawn down.
The lower the share price, the more the Mantengu shares are diluted.
The JSE responds that what may appear on occasion as naked short selling has a more prosaic explanation: there was no short selling, naked or otherwise, in the Mantengu shares of which Mantengu has complained.
Although naked selling is not illegal in SA, it is prohibited by JSE rules.
The exchange says it frequently conducts securities lending and borrowing with market participants, but this does not necessarily mean the shares are being used for short selling.
The JSE says there are instances where market participants own the securities they are short selling, but they experience administrative challenges in ensuring that the securities are available to be delivered on the settlement date.
‘Sophisticated criminal syndicate’
In a sponsored article published last week in Business Day, Mantengu reiterated its claims that the JSE, together with certain precincts of the South African Police Service, “is entangled with a sophisticated criminal syndicate using the exchange as a cover for share price manipulation, money laundering and racketeering”.
Mantengu says the syndicate’s goal is to target certain JSE-listed companies and force a change of control, typically by driving down the share price.
The aim is then to strip the company’s assets and sell them at fire-sale prices to their own benefit. The alleged syndicate avoids detection by using nominees and round-tripping shares.
“Arguably the most damaging revelation is that senior JSE personnel are involved. Mantengu possesses email evidence – provided by a whistleblower – that some senior JSE staff are complicit,” claims the Mantengu article.
The JSE has denied this, deciding it had no other option than to approach the court for an interdict and a demand for the emails referenced by Mantengu.
