It consisted of an interview with Mr Duerr in which he, among others, made the following statements: (a)  he had stumbled upon the astonishing fact that the Bank (being a central bank) was 100 per cent privately owned, and started buying himself into the organisation;  (b)  in order to side-step/circumvent the limitation of half a per cent of the issued shares that may be owned by a single shareholder, he ordered shares in the name of family members to their personal limit, resulting in his wife, children, parents and parentsin-law becoming part of the deal;  (c)  his family held about five per cent, his personal friends an estimated five per cent and partners who had joined the business owned an estimated five to ten per cent of the Bank’s shares;  (d)  this business was not expensive for him, measured against the two million issued shares and their value expressed in euros;  (e)  his initial purpose for buying the shares, namely to prevent the erection of a nuclear power plant near his property, had been superseded by an approach of achieving the maximum possible return on capital from his investment;  (f)  in his opinion it would amount to R4 206 per share and this would be most easily achieved through nationalisation of the Bank as in such an event shareholders would be entitled to 40 per cent of the reserves of the Bank;  (g)  he was persisting in his attempts to acquire more Bank shares; and  (h)  from his side he wanted to increase the pressure on the central bank and threatened to pass on shares under his influence to the Chinese or the Indians.
In this vein he pointed out that there are many investors who would be prepared to pay millions in order to have access to a political lever. In various correspondence Mr Duerr has behaved in a threatening manner, including laying criminal charges against the Bank’s Legal Counsel, which have been dismissed as without foundation by the National Prosecuting Authority.