Webinar: The record thus far - The ‘Specialised’ Commercial Crime Courts [16 October 2025]

The Specialised Commercial Crime Courts (SCCC's) were initially established in 1999 and are thus more than a quarter of a century old. There are now 22 SCCC's in 16 locations in all the Divisions across South Africa. There has been little reflection on their record and operation.

The SCCC's are intended to be the primary courts in which serious commercial crime is processed. As such, they are the main courts in which corruption, money laundering and other serious economic offences must be addressed – precisely those crimes which affect South Africa’s standing in terms of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey-listing.

SCCC's are the arena in which the work of the Economic Crime and Corruption component of the DPCI (Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation) and Specialised Commercial Crime Unit (SCCU) of the National Prosecuting Authority comes to fruition.

This webinar launches a Policy Brief entitled: “The record thus far: The ‘Specialised’ Commercial Crime Courts” which considers the SCCC public record since establishment in 1999, as well as some of the likely reasons for the observed trends, and recommends some solutions to improve outcomes.

This Policy Brief comes in advance of a comprehensive review of the operation of SCCC's and the prosecution of commercial crime, currently being carried out by the Judges Matter Project of the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit (DGRU) at the University of Cape Town, with technical assistance from the Dullah Omar Institute, the results of which will be available in early 2026.

Panelist:

• Jean Redpath, Senior Researcher at the Dullah Omar Institute, will provide an overview of the public record of the SCCC's to date
• Vanja Karth, Director of DGRU, will discuss the intentions, challenges, insights and progress thus far in carrying out the detailed research on SCCC

They will be in discussion with Lukas Muntingh, Director of the Dullah Omar Institute.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Following registration, participants will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

We would like to acknowledge the Open Society Foundations and the Sigrid Rausing Trust for making this webinar possible.