For months, South Africans have been told that Eskom has “paused” or “stayed” its legal challenge against the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) over the granting of electricity trading licences to five private electricity traders. The message, conveyed publicly by Eskom’s leadership on 30 September 2025 and welcomed implicitly by policymakers, was meant to signal restraint, cooperation and a commitment to legislative and regulatory reform processes rather than litigation. A directive issued by the Gauteng Division of the High Court on 31 October 2025 states, in plain and unambiguous language, that Eskom has since confirmed to the court that it is proceeding with its review application.
Far from the matter being put on ice pending the finalisation of electricity trading rules by Nersa, the directive records active procedural steps: responses to interlocutory notices, the preparation of confidentiality agreements, and the imminent production of the Rule 53 record by Nersa. This contradiction raises uncomfortable questions – not only about Eskom’s litigation strategy, but about transparency, governance and trust – at a moment when South Africa’s electricity sector is meant to be moving decisively toward reform and competition. In 2024 and early 2025, Nersa granted electricity trading licences to five companies: CBI-electric Apollo, Discovery Green, Green Electron Market, GreenCo Power Services and NOA Group Trading.
These licences were a logical progression in South Africa’s evolving electricity market framework in terms of the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, 2024, intended to enable greater competition, wheeling and trading as the system moves away from a vertically integrated monopoly. Eskom Distribution objected. In mid-2025, Eskom launched a High Court review application challenging Nersa’s decision.
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The grounds were technical and legal – stated as procedural and substantive flaws in the regulator’s licensing process – but the implications were profoundly political and self-serving. The case was widely seen as a test of whether Eskom, even in an unbundled environment, was prepared to tolerate genuine market competition. Energy and Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa intervened publicly and repeatedly.
In August 2025, he urged Eskom to withdraw or at least stay its litigation, arguing that Nersa was fast-tracking the development of electricity trading rules and that parallel court action risked undermining confidence in the regulatory process. The minister’s message was clear: policy reform should not be strangled by litigation. Eskom was encouraged to engage constructively in the expedited rule-making process for electricity trading rather than fighting the regulator in court.
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