Tribunal upholds ruling against employer over WhatsApp provident fund dispute.
The Financial Services Tribunal has dismissed an application by Sibisi Conveyor Products (Pty) Ltd to overturn a ruling ordering it to pay outstanding provident fund contributions for an employee, finding that informal WhatsApp discussions could not lawfully terminate fund membership while the employee remained employed.
The tribunal recently upheld an earlier determination by the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA) against the company in a dispute involving former employee Gustav Oosthuizen and the Discovery Life Provident Umbrella Fund.
The matter centred on whether Oosthuizen had validly withdrawn from the provident fund while still working for the company, thereby ending the employer’s obligation to continue making contributions on his behalf.
The tribunal panel found that the employer failed to provide any evidence that the employee had formally withdrawn from the fund in accordance with its rules. Instead, the company relied primarily on WhatsApp exchanges between Oosthuizen and the company’s former chief executive officer, arguing that the conversations showed the employee no longer wished to contribute to the provident fund.
