Nedbank Zimbabwe may have been forced to return Neville Mutsvangwa’s money after the court ruled against the bank, but the repayment has opened a far more uncomfortable question: who pays for the six-year battle that Mutsvangwa had to fight to get his money back?
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Read E-PaperThe principal was eventually repaid.
But the legal fees remained.
So did the interest allegedly lost while the money was unavailable.
And in a country where the currency has been repeatedly battered and replaced, the value lost over the years cannot simply be wished away.
The dispute, Neville Mutsvangwa v Nedbank Zimbabwe & Others, case number MC4553/20, began over transactions Mutsvangwa said he had not authorised. Nedbank disputed liability and relied heavily on its position that the transactions were authenticated through a mobile number registered to Mutsvangwa and one-time passwords sent to that number.
But the matter ultimately ended with the bank having to repay the principal.
That should have been the end.
It was not.
The more troubling question is whether Nedbank’s repayment actually restored Mutsvangwa to the financial position he occupied before the disputed transactions.
If the bank had to be taken to court before the principal was returned, who pays the price of taking that legal route?
Mutsvangwa did not merely lose access to money. He allegedly lost the use of that money for years while lawyers, court proceedings and investigations consumed time and resources.
Money has a time value. A principal amount sitting unavailable for six years is not economically equivalent to the same amount being available for investment, business or other productive use.
Then there is the legal bill.
If a customer successfully challenges a bank and the principal is ultimately returned, it is difficult to argue that the customer has been made completely whole if he is left paying substantial costs for having pursued the recovery.
The currency issue makes the situation even more serious.
The transactions date back to 2020, before the Zimbabwe dollar was eventually demonetised. The value of money changed dramatically during the period of the dispute.
So the question is brutally simple: did Mutsvangwa recover his money — or merely recover the principal?
Nedbank’s lawyers previously advised him to consider “foregoing this matter.”
He did not.
The court outcome ultimately resulted in the principal being repaid.
But the legal costs, lost interest and financial consequences of six years without the money remain the real bill.
And that raises an uncomfortable question for Nedbank:
When a bank loses a case and returns the customer’s principal, is that enough — or should the customer also be restored for the cost of having to fight for what was already his?
