Financial Tribunal rules against man claiming R824,000 due to pension transfer delays.
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A retired Deloitte employee has lost his attempt to overturn a pension adjudicator’s ruling after the Financial Services Tribunal dismissed his claim for more than R824,000 in alleged investment losses linked to delays in transferring his retirement savings.
The application had been brought by Helgo Rapsch, who sought reconsideration of a 2025 determination by the adjudicator that rejected his complaint against the Deloitte and Touche Pension and Provident Funds, their former administrator Alexander Forbes Financial Services, and others.
The dispute centred on the transfer of Rapsch’s retirement savings after he retired from Deloitte in 2018 and later elected to move his benefits into preservation funds administered by Allan Gray ahead of a major administrative transition within the Deloitte funds.
The tribunal heard that in January 2024 members were informed that administration of the Deloitte funds would move from Alexander Forbes to Sanlam Life Insurance effective 1 March 2024. Members wishing to withdraw or transfer their benefits before the switch were required to submit the necessary documentation before 29 February 2024.
Rapsch submitted his claim forms in mid-February 2024. His pension and provident fund investments were disinvested on 21 February 2024 and placed in the fund’s bank account pending transfer. Recognition of transfer documents were sent to Allan Gray and tax directives were requested from the South African Revenue Service the following week.
However, SARS rejected the tax directive request on 28 February due to an invalid insurer reference number, preventing the transfer from being completed before the administrative handover. From 1 March 2024, a statutory freeze on transactions took effect while Sanlam implemented the new administration platform. Processing resumed in early May.
Rapsch’s provident fund benefit of more than R32 million was ultimately transferred on 26 June 2024 and his pension fund benefit of over R13 million the following day. During the interim period, the funds remained in the Deloitte fund’s bank account and earned approximately R723,785 in bank interest, which was included in the final transfer.
Rapsch argued that there was an unreasonable delay in transferring his pension and provident fund benefits to the Allan Gray preservation funds. He said because of this delay, he claimed he lost investment returns that he believed his money would have earned if it had been transferred and invested earlier.
He calculated his alleged loss at R824,022 and sought compensation plus interest.
The adjudicator dismissed the complaint in July 2025, finding that Rapsch had failed to prove either loss or causation and had in fact benefited slightly from the timing of the transfer.
In seeking reconsideration, Rapsch argued before the tribunal that the returns on his disinvested funds should have been calculated using the Money Market Fund’s yield of about 9.09% instead of the bank interest actually earned. He also argued that interest at the prescribed legal rate should apply.
The tribunal rejected these arguments, ruling that the governing rules of the pension and provident funds were decisive. Those rules explicitly state that once a member’s benefits are disinvested, the money must be held in the fund’s bank account and, if payment is unreasonably delayed, only the bank interest actually earned must be added.
The panel emphasised that the rules are binding on both the fund and its members and leave no room for hypothetical or notional investment returns in another vehicle during the processing period. The tribunal also held that the prescribed rate of interest under separate legislation was not applicable because the fund rules already specify how interest must be calculated.
The judges concluded that Rapsch received exactly what the rules required: his full fund credits plus the bank interest accrued during the transition period. His loss calculation, they found, was based on speculative assumptions about hypothetical investments and had no contractual or statutory basis.
The tribunal added that even if it had found merit in the claim, it would not have been empowered to award compensatory damages, as such relief falls outside its powers.
The application for reconsideration was therefore dismissed.
sinenhlanhla.masilela@iol.co.za
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