HARARE – A Harare Commercial Court judge has delivered a stinging rebuke of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, finding that it acted unlawfully, irrationally, and in bad faith when it froze a gold-buying company’s funds, and that the central bank governor’s own court papers were worthless because he signed them electronically from Washington while pretending to be in Harare.
Justice Joseph Mafusire, in a 23-page judgment handed down on April 22, set aside the RBZ’s July 2025 decision suspending Fidelity Gold Refinery’s account at GetBucks Microfinance Bank, and ordered the central bank to pay costs.
The judge opened with barely-disguised exasperation at both parties.
“The parties know it: this was a matter not for the courts,” he wrote. “It ought to have been settled out of court. That it did not, is manifestly an issue of personality clashes and the preservation of self-images.”
The dispute pitted Al Shams Global, a British Virgin Islands-registered company owned by businessman Jayesh Shah, against Zimbabwe’s central bank. The judge found the relationship between the two to be anything but ordinary – spanning more than two decades and involving Al Shams Global lending the RBZ millions of dollars for “urgent national needs,” with the central bank still repaying a debt that stood at over US$53 million as recently as 2022. At the time the dispute erupted, the RBZ was servicing that debt at US$250,000 per week.
“Through numerous case management conferences, I coaxed the parties to talk and settle,” the judge noted. “I never thought I would have to render a decision. I was wrong.”
Al Shams had a contract with Fidelity Gold Refinery, a unit of the RBZ, to purchase a minimum of 100 kilogrammes of gold per week. Al Shams would fly the gold to Dubai, sell it, and bring the hard currency proceeds back into Zimbabwe in cash, declaring it to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport before depositing the funds into Fidelity’s account at GetBucks.
On May 31 and June 17, 2025, Shah brought in US$6 million and US$6.1 million respectively, a combined US$12.1 million. He followed every prescribed step.
In July 2025, the RBZ froze Fidelity’s entire account, citing suspicions about US$7 million of those deposits. The central bank’s consistent demand thereafter was for an explanation of “the source of funds.”
Al Shams refused to provide it in writing, citing confidentiality obligations, and instead sought a face-to-face meeting. The impasse was never broken. All out-of-court efforts failed. By October 2025, Al Shams had filed in the Commercial Court.
Before even reaching the merits, the judge dealt a procedural blow to the RBZ that effectively removed it from the proceedings entirely. Al Shams had challenged the validity of the RBZ governor’s opposing affidavit, pointing out that while it was stamped as having been sworn at Harare on October 10, 2025, before commissioner of oaths Gloria Matambo, the governor was in fact in Washington, DC that day.
The RBZ’s response was, in Justice Mafusire’s telling, chaotic.
“I could not quite understand the position of the first respondent and its legal practitioners on the issue,” he wrote.
Rather than filing a proper affidavit to explain what happened, the RBZ’s lawyers produced a document that was “neither a sworn statement nor heads of argument, but purports to be both.”
Through it, the RBZ eventually admitted the governor had signed electronically after taking the oath online, but provided no sworn explanation from either the governor or the commissioner of oaths.
The judge was unmoved by arguments invoking technology and the Commercial Division’s modernising ethos. He compared the situation unfavourably to a South African case the RBZ had cited, ED Food S.R.L. v Africa Best [Pty] Ltd, where a commissioner of oaths had submitted a proper affidavit detailing the virtual commissioning process. Here, there was nothing comparable, Justice Mafusire said.
“Furthermore, until the applicant raised the issue, the opposing affidavit was passing off as having been deposed to and signed at Harare before a commissioner of oaths, with both the deponent and the commissioner of oaths being in the presence of each other,” the judge found. “This was highly misleading.”
Citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ariston Management Services v Econet Wireless Zimbabwe which confirmed that an affidavit deponent and commissioner must be physically present together, the judge struck out the RBZ’s entire notice of opposition and opposing affidavit.
“Arguments from the Bar, spirited as they may be, cannot be a substitute for sworn evidence,” he said. “The first respondent could have easily applied to adduce further evidence rather than sneak in such material evidence through the back door.”
On procedural fairness under section 3 of the Administrative Justice Act, Justice Mafusire observed: “There was no communication by the first respondent to the applicant regarding the blocking of the account in question.”
The freeze was announced to GetBucks by letter on July 25, 2025, but Al Shams was simply never told.
“I find that before, or even soon after its impugned decision, the first respondent did not comply with section 3 of AJA, particularly ss [2] thereof, in regards to providing adequate reasons for its decision to block the account.”
On legality, the judge found that the guidelines the RBZ relied upon to demand a “source of funds” explanation were directed at authorised dealers – the banks – not at depositors.
But the judge reserved his sharpest criticism for the RBZ’s invocation of the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act. The central bank had argued it was entitled to demand source-of-funds explanations under the Act’s anti-money laundering framework. The judge took that framework apart and turned it against the RBZ.
Under section 12 of the Money Laundering Act, he found, it is the Financial Intelligence Unit or Zimra, not the RBZ, that is empowered to seize suspicious currency, and even then only for 72 hours without a magistrate’s order.
The FIU, though housed within the RBZ, is a creature of statute that “acts independently of both the RBZ and the minister of finance.”
The RBZ’s own in-house Financial Surveillance Division is a different entity entirely which cannot usurp the functions of the FIU.
Section 30 of the Money Laundering Act requires financial institutions to report suspicious transactions to the FIU within three working days. There was no evidence the RBZ had done so.
“Apparently, there was no scrupulous observance by the respondents themselves, particularly the first respondent (RBZ), of the provisions of the Money Laundering Act,” the judge noted.
On irrationality, the judge found the RBZ’s stance indefensible in the context of the parties’ relationship. The RBZ already knew the funds had come from a financial institution in Dubai – it had said so in its own email of September 1, 2025. Yet it continued to demand proof.
The US$7 million it questioned was less than the amount it was itself paying Al Shams weekly. The company had operated openly within Zimbabwe’s banking system for over two decades.
“I find that not only did the RBZ breach the Money Laundering Act in the respects ventilated, but also that its decision to block the account in question was arbitrary and irrational in the light of the situation prevailing on the ground,” said the judge.
Al Shams’ own characterisation that the freeze was “no more than a clash of personalities between the parties’ principals and nothing related to genuine administrative oversight” – was not rejected by the court.
The judge set aside the RBZ’s July 25, 2025, decision suspending Fidelity’s account, and ordered the central bank to pay the costs of the application on a party-and-party scale. He declined to award costs on the punitive attorney-and-client scale sought by Al Shams, finding that the RBZ’s conduct on the merits, though unlawful, had not crossed the threshold for a penal costs order.
The irregularity over the governor’s affidavit, he said, “was not such gross misconduct as would warrant an adverse order of costs beyond the party and party scale.”
Al Shams was represented by Titan Law instructing Advocate Lewis Uriri and Professor Lovemore Madhuku. The RBZ was represented by Gambe Law Group while Fidelity was represented by Coghlan Welsh & Guest. GetBucks did not participate in the proceedings.
