- ADS filed at least seven failed actions from 2004 to 2025, recycling settled claims and ignoring binding judgments.
- Court finds ADS’s conduct “an abuse of process” and bars further litigation without prior leave.
- Judge Millar affirms that access to court is not a license for harassment, obstruction, or judicial defiance.
In 2003, Standard Bank developed a scrambled PIN pad for internet banking, a security feature where numbers appear in random order to prevent hacking.
Around the same time, Johan Reynders, director of Advertising Digital Services (ADS), pitched a similar concept called the “@ key-system” to the bank. After signing a non-disclosure agreement, the bank rejected the proposal, citing its own superior technology.
ADS claimed the rejection was a ruse, alleging that Standard Bank had stolen its idea and breached the NDA. However, as Judge A Millar later noted, “the information had been publicly available online since 1998,” and the bank’s version was based on a 13-line Java algorithm using techniques from 1980s textbooks.
From contract to delict to the Constitutional Court
ADS’s first lawsuit in 2004 alleged breach of confidentiality. It was dismissed in 2010 after a full trial, with the court ruling there was no breach, no misappropriation, and no protected idea. A key figure in the dispute was Cornelius Adolf du Plessis, then an employee of Standard Bank, who testified during the 2010 trial that ultimately dismissed ADS’s claims.
His involvement did not end there. As ADS continued to pursue litigation, Du Plessis was repeatedly named as a co-defendant, accused of fraud, misrepresentation, and procedural misconduct. ADS appealed, withdrew, reapplied, reframed, and refiled repeatedly.
Between 2010 and 2025, ADS launched at least seven separate actions, including appeals to the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court. Each was dismissed. By 2017, ADS had reframed its original claims as delictual, now alleging that du Plessis had personally misled the court during the earlier trial. Judge Millar rejected this attempt to repackage old grievances, describing it as “an attempt to turn back the clock” and give ADS “a proverbial second bite at the cherry.”
A pattern of delay, defiance, and disruption
The judgment exposes a persistent pattern of obstruction. ADS cycled through six sets of attorneys, missed deadlines, filed defective papers, and repeatedly attempted to reopen settled disputes. Reynders often represented ADS himself, despite warnings about his lack of legal standing. When courts ruled against him, he filed misconduct complaints against judges and tried to block cost recoveries.
Judge Millar described this conduct as “an attempt to turn back the clock” and “an abuse of the process of the Court.” Citing the Supreme Court of Appeal in Beinash v Wixley: “An abuse of process takes place where the procedures permitted by the Rules of the Court are used for a purpose extraneous to that objective.”
The vexatious proceedings act
Standard Bank and Du Plessis applied to have ADS and Reynders declared vexatious under Section 2(1)(b) of the Vexatious Proceedings Act. Judge Millar agreed, citing ABSA Bank Ltd v Dlamini and MEC v Maphanga to confirm the threshold for persistent, groundless litigation with no reasonable cause.
He emphasised that Section 34 of the Constitution, the right to access court, is not absolute:
“Very powerful considerations would be required for its limitation to be reasonable and justifiable,” he wrote, quoting Chief Lesapo v NW Agricultural Bank. “But access to court is a bulwark against vigilantism, not a license to harass.”
“This has to stop”
The judgment concludes with a decisive sanction: ADS and Reynders may not institute any new legal proceedings without prior court permission. “This has to stop,” Judge Millar wrote, echoing Christensen NO v Richter. “When proceedings are vague and not substantiated, clog rolls, and evade costs, the court must act.”
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