Commercial Law
Directors: Here’s How to Avoid Being Sued for Company Debts
Perhaps you’re a director losing sleep over the risk of losing everything if creditors sue you personally for your company’s debts because you’re asset-rich, and they can’t squeeze anything out of the company. Or maybe you worry about the company itself suing you for losses it suffers because of something you have or haven’t done.…
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Rising Damp and Failed Waterproofing: How to Sue the Sellers
Consider this all-too-common scenario: You buy your dream house and happily move in. Only then do you discover that the house has major defects, which were never disclosed to you by the seller. You demand the seller pays the repair costs but the seller refuses. So off to court you go, claiming either damages or…
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Budget 2024: Your Tax Tables and Tax Calculator
How much will you be paying in income tax, petrol and sin taxes? The unchanged transfer duty and tax tables, with a note on fiscal drag Unchanged from last year, so taxpayers can breathe a sigh of relief that rates have not been increased as many forecasters had feared. But the other side of…
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Moonlighting Without Consent is Misconduct – A Firing Offence
Up to a quarter of all middle-class South Africans are reported to “moonlight”, that is to run a part-time side hustle or side business in addition to their full-time jobs. Some, it seems, go one step further and manage to hold down two full-time jobs simultaneously. No doubt the pandemic-accelerated increase in remote working has…
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Now Creditors Can Apply for Directors to be Declared Delinquent – Why is That Important?
A recent High Court decision means that, for the first time, creditors of debtor companies are specifically cleared to apply for the company’s directors to be declared “delinquent” in certain circumstances. And that has significant implications for both directors and creditors. For directors – major long-term career risks Company directors need to manage a whole…
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Can Your Thumbs-Up Emoji or E-Signature Seal a Deal?
ECTA (the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act) means that you can in many cases create legally binding agreements purely electronically – via email, WhatsApp, social media and the like. There is of course both risk and opportunity here. On the one hand, the old hassles of printing everything out and signing reams and reams of…
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Your New House Leaks Like a Sieve – Can You Sue the Seller?
You move into your new dream home, excited and happy. Until it rains, and the roof leaks. As the repair teams tramp around on your roof and the bills start piling up whilst you weave around buckets and tarpaulins and sodden carpets, you go back to the seller and demand recompense. “Sorry”, says the seller,…
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Dual Citizens: Good News if You Lost Your South African Citizenship, But…
Note: Many South Africans who should be aware of this new development will be overseas and/or may not have heard of the Supreme Court of Appeal decision we discuss below. If you know of any such person, please consider forwarding this to them as soon as possible. Reportedly, thousands of South Africans have lost their…
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Trustees: Your New Duty to Report Beneficial Owners
South Africa’s grey listing by the Financial Action Task Force, the global financial watchdog, has led government to hurriedly introduce new “Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing” measures to combat financial crimes. One of those measure is a new requirement for trustees to disclose all “beneficial owners” of trusts. In what was unfortunately no April…
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Overtime: The Importance of Agreements
All employers and employees need to know of a recent Labour Court judgment holding that an instruction to work overtime in the absence of an agreement is unlawful. A lapsed overtime agreement makes dismissal unfair A company’s Site Manager instructed four employees to work overtime to meet production targets but they refused, citing safety issues…
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