High Court Clips FIC Power to Backdate Penalties
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Got a letter saying you owe the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) for non-compliance going back years? Read this before you pay. A Pretoria court just told the regulator it cannot reach back to a time when it was not even your supervisor.
What the Court Decided
On 25 March 2026, the Gauteng High Court ruled in favour of Len Dekker Attorneys Incorporated. The firm had been hit with penalties of just under R235,000 for FICA non-compliance stretching back to 2017. There was one problem. The FIC only became the supervisor for legal practitioners on 19 December 2022. Before that date, the Legal Practice Council handled FICA compliance for attorneys.
The court ruled that the FIC cannot calculate sanctions over a period when it did not yet have supervisory authority. Any recalculation, the court ordered, must be limited to the period from 19 December 2022 onwards.
The judge also found that the FIC Appeal Board was wrong to ignore the remedial steps the firm had taken after the non-compliance finding. Len Dekker had appointed a compliance provider (DocFox, now nCino KYC) to fix its systems. That work must be taken into account when penalties are recalculated.
Why This Matters for Accounting Practices
If your firm offers company or trust registration services, sets up structures for clients, or acts as a registered office or nominee director, you fall under Item 2 of Schedule 1 of the FIC Act as a Trust and Company Service Provider (TCSP). You are an accountable institution. Many small practices only fully registered with the FIC, set up an RMCP, and started filing Risk and Compliance Returns within the last two or three years.
Here is the takeaway. The Len Dekker ruling does not let you off the hook. Your duties around the RMCP, client due diligence, sanctions screening, and reporting are still real and the FIC is still issuing fines. But the judgment sets two important boundaries that protect small firms:
The FIC cannot calculate your penalty based on years when it was not yet your supervisor, or when a specific duty did not yet apply to you. That is a real cap on what they can charge.
If you have already fixed the problem, that evidence must be considered. A firm that has done the remedial work cannot be treated the same as one that has done nothing.
The lesson is simple. The FIC has power, but it has limits. If you receive a notice of intention to sanction, do not just accept the number. Check the dates used. Check when the duty actually applied to you. And make sure every remedial step is on record.
What to Do Today
If you have received an FIC notice, get advice on the dates used to calculate the fine. Push back if the period stretches before the FIC was your supervisor.
Keep written records of every compliance fix you have made: dated RMCP updates, staff training registers, DocFox or similar onboarding logs, sanctions screening evidence, and dated RCR submissions. This is the evidence that brings the number down.
If you are a TCSP under Item 2 and you are still not fully registered or you have outstanding RCRs, fix it now. The earlier you close the window, the smaller your exposure.
Read more on this here:
30 June: TCSPs File or Face Sanctions
FIC’s Draft Directive 11: From RMCP Documents to Real Accountability