Newly uncovered emails suggest that in 2016 consultancy Bain & Co. SA was happy to have its relationship with Gupta-linked Trillian described as an "informal partnership".
The emails are part of the so-called #GuptaLeaks, a large cache of emails leaked from inside the business empire of the Guptas.
The correspondence shows that, at the same time that Bain was working at the SA Revenue Service (SARS), its senior leadership had multiple online and in-person meetings with Trillian where they discussed collaboration on work at Eskom and Transnet.
The correspondence challenges Bain's repeated assurances that it didn't do any work with anyone in the Guptas' orbit and rebuffed Trillian's advances without any collaboration taking place.
Bain SA's new managing partner, Stephen York, this week wrote an opinion piece in Business Day that the consultancy had "no connection or involvement with the Guptas, or any other entities identified in the media as related to the Gupta family, at SARS or elsewhere".
But News24 Business found emails that were sent between the official accounts of dozens of Trillian and Bain employees between October 2015 and April 2017
