McKinsey & Co on Friday leapt to the defence of the company's operations in SA, saying it has cleaned house since the “dark era” of state capture.

This comes after representatives of the multinational management consulting firm were charged by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) over the R398.4m Transnet fraud case.

Goitseone Mangope was in court on Friday representing the company.

The Investigative Directorate (ID) said it was trying to locate Vigas Sagar, a former principal and employee of the company, who was out of the country. He was indicted for his involvement in his personal and representative capacity.

Sagar would have to account for his own conduct, said McKinsey. But pursuing the company now was without merit, it asserted.

“We remain deeply remorseful that our firm has in any way been associated with the dark era of state capture. We publicly apologised and chose to take accountable action where we made mistakes,” the company said in a statement.

"We rejected Regiments and Trillian on probity grounds in March 2016. We also returned our full fees with interest for those projects. We did this because of our firm belief that it was the right thing to do.

“We co-operated with all authorities, including the NPA, and shared everything we found from our own extensive internal investigations. Three senior partners [testified] before the judicial commission of inquiry.”

McKinsey said it had upgraded its professional conduct policies and invested in its legal and compliance capabilities. “We have gone beyond our legal obligation as we sought to make amends ... and have applied our learning from these hard lessons across our firm.

“After four years of exhaustive evidence, the commission [of inquiry into state capture] did not make any recommendations for further action against McKinsey and praised our 'responsible corporate citizenship'.

“Given no new information has been presented since the commission, we believe pursuing McKinsey does not have merit and we will defend ourselves against any say.”

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