Latest Brief
D-Day for POPI Act compliance looming
After a seven year wait President Ramaphosa has announced that 01 July 2020 is D-Day for the commencement of the POPI Act. Businesses will have a...
Read MoreLatest Press Offices
Friends And Family May Turn To Foes – Be Careful Who You Appoint As An Executor
There are only two things in life that are inevitable, death and taxes. Taxes are debatable however death will come knocking on each and every one of our doors at some point in our life. This article is about making wise and responsible decisions prior to your death to ensure that you appoint an...
How corporate taxpayers can deal with pushbacks from a revenue-hungry SARS
Corporate and provisional taxpayers should brace themselves for more pushbacks than usual from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) in the coming months. Against the backdrop of the ZAR 35-billion tax deficit for April 2020 and the tabling of the Finance Minister’s emergency budget on 24...
Registration of Major B-BBEE Transactions and implications of Covid-19
With the occurrence of the Covid-19 epidemic and the lockdown of South Africa, many companies will be considering ways in which to restructure their organisations in order to reduce costs (including retrenching employees). These measures (as well as others) may have an impact on Major B-BBEE...
POPIA to commence soon
The much anticipated and deeply needed Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (“POPIA”), which gives effect to the constitutional right to privacy in South Africa, will soon be commence. Certain provisions of the Act, including those relating to the establishment of the Information...
Workplace Compensation And The Covid-19 Virus
Since March, employees in South African have been expressly entitled to claim for compensation if they become infected with the Covid-19 virus in the course of their work. However, Grant Nirenstein, director at law firm Knowles Hussain Lindsay Inc, says proving the infection occurred in the...
Beware When Implementing Corona-induced Business Takeovers
The destructive effect on businesses by the lockdown has resulted in many business takeovers and mergers implemented to cut costs. However, section 197 of the Labour Relations Act (LRA) requires the new employer, in a takeover as a going concern, to take over all the employees of the old...
Minister delivers supplementary budget 2020
South Africa’s Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivered a supplementary budget on Wednesday 24 June 2020, highlighting that business confidence will remain near historic lows, with investment and employment remaining constrained. This emergency budget comes only four months after the National...
Directors beware! The court declares Dudu Myeni (former SAA Chair) a Delinquent Director
It is a common principle within South African company law that a company is managed by its board of directors (“Board”). The Board bears the responsibility for the functioning and management of the company and is ultimately accountable for the performance thereof. However, the Board’s collective...
Are there anomalies in the recent Covid-19 Directives issued by Government?
In the final week of June 2020, the Department of Co-Operative Government and Traditional Affairs as well as the Department of Small Business Development issued new Directives in terms of the Disaster Management Act 57 of 2002. This article will canvass the content of these fresh Directives as...
Copyright reform takes one tentative step forward, and several more back
Proposed amendments to South Africa’s Copyright Act of 1978 have been underway for several years, with the first draft of the Copyright Amendment Bill published for public comment in July 2015. However, commentators levelled harsh criticism against it, claiming that it was poorly drafted and in...
When disaster strikes from an Environmental Law perspective – an explanation of sections 30 and 30A of NEMA
Disasters can strike at any given moment and can wreak havoc in their wake. Although the Covid-19 pandemic is not strictly an environmental legal issue, it resulted in President Cyril Ramaphosa declaring a national state of disaster in South Africa in terms of section 27 of the of the Disaster...
Examining the impact of selling restrictions in B-BBEE transaction documents
Restrictions on the sale of a Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) shareholder's interest in a company is often a contentious point of negotiation in a B-BBEE transaction. From the company's and the incumbent (normally non-B-BBEE) shareholder's perspective, requiring some level of...
Labour court provides much needed correction on no work no pay cases
The Johannesburg High Court recently found in the matter of Mhlonipheni v Mezepoli Melrose Arch and Others 2020 that employees (in this case, employed by the Mezepoli and Plaka chain of restaurants) were able to tender their services during Level 5 and Level 4 of the National Lockdown, and...
