What happened
Mr Ackerman was for fourteen years a client of Caleo Capital, an investment management business owned by Mr Amaning, who is black, and Mr Wellman, who is white. In a January 2018 portfolio review at Mr Ackerman's own premises he used the k-word about the people running the country. In August 2019, days after a robbery at his home, he sent Mr Wellman a WhatsApp message saying he would kill every person of that description who crossed his path. In an October 2021 phone call about the effect of a strike on his business, he said his workers, in the same word, knew their place.
In February 2023 Mr Amaning, Mr Wellman and Mr Liebman, a Jewish partner in Caleo, complained to the Equality Court of hate speech and harassment. Mr Ackerman denied making the statements, suggested the WhatsApp messages could have been fabricated or produced by a technical error during phone updates, and argued under section 15 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act that the complainants should have led expert IT evidence to authenticate them. He also testified that, as a deeply religious man, he had used the word with one f to mean a disbeliever in God. The Equality Court rejected all of it, found hate speech against all black people and harassment, and ordered him to pay R500 000 to the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, with sensitisation training and an apology.
What the court held
In Ackerman v Amaning and Another [2026] ZASCA 138, handed down on 7 October 2026, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal with costs.
On whether the statements were made: the Equality Court's finding was closely reasoned and rested on credibility, and an appellate court will be reluctant to disturb a trial court's factual findings of that kind. The statements were made.
On section 15 of ECTA: there is no requirement to lead expert evidence to prove a WhatsApp message. The Equality Court was right to say so.
On hate speech: the test is whether a reasonable person would read the words as showing the intent to be harmful or to incite harm and to promote or propagate hatred. The use of the k-word needs no further analysis beyond noting the speaker's aversion and ill will for the people he was speaking about. The word inherently refers to race, a prohibited ground under section 9(3) of the Constitution.
On privacy: that the words were spoken in a private conversation with another white man was no safe escape. Even the right to communicate freely in private carries the responsibility to do so in a way that does not threaten the broader social wellbeing. The communications were not made within the speaker's inner sanctum.
On remedy: section 21(2) of the Equality Act gives the Equality Court a discretion, and an appellate court interferes only where that discretion was not exercised judicially, rested on wrong principles or a misdirection on the facts. Nothing of that kind was shown.
What it means for your practice
The holding most practitioners will cite is the one on privacy. The "intimate personal sphere" that the Equality Act leaves alone is narrow. A business meeting with your adviser, a message to him, a phone call about your company, are outside it, even when only two people are present and both are white. Clients who assume that what they say to their lawyer, accountant, banker or broker in a one-to-one setting is beyond the Equality Court's reach are wrong, and the person on the other end of that conversation can be the complainant.
The evidence holding is practical. A WhatsApp message is proved like any other document, by the witness who received it and the surrounding facts; section 15 of ECTA does not demand a forensic expert. Defences built on "it could have been fabricated" without evidence of fabrication will fail, and a trial court's credibility findings on who said what will stand on appeal.
The remedy holding sets expectations. A six-figure payment to a named foundation, training and an apology are within the Equality Court's discretion, and the Supreme Court of Appeal will not re-weigh them.
For practitioners themselves the case is a warning about two roles. As advisers, you may be the recipient of this kind of communication and have standing to complain, and a duty of care to colleagues who are its target. As employers, a statement about "my workers" of the kind made here is hate speech whether or not it reaches the workers.
What to do on your files
If a client faces an Equality Court complaint over private remarks, do not build the defence on privacy or on the absence of expert evidence for electronic messages. Both have now failed at the Supreme Court of Appeal. Concentrate on whether the words were said and what a reasonable person would take them to mean.
If a client, employee or colleague has received communications of this kind, preserve them as received, with dates and context, and note who else was present. That is the record the Equality Court acted on here.
Review your firm's own policies on client conduct towards staff. The judgment confirms that a client's racist communication to a professional adviser is actionable by that adviser; a firm should know in advance what it will do when it happens.
This note is drawn from the Supreme Court of Appeal's own media summary, which does not form part of the judgment; read the judgment before relying on it.
Source: Ackerman v Amaning and Another (744/2024) [2026] ZASCA 138, Supreme Court of Appeal, 7 October 2026. The court's media summary: https://www.supremecourtofappeal.org.za/images/SCA2026-138ms.pdf