The Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) last week announced that it would pilot a dedicated Insolvency Court, a move widely celebrated by specialist lawyers as it will see insolvency cases being heard within a month of enrolment.

Previously, these cases could take many months to be heard.

Insolvency matters are ‘generally, by their nature, urgent’, said Graham Girdwood SC, chair of the High Court Committee at the Johannesburg Society of Advocates.

The Sunday Times reports that he said they require a swift determination to prevent unnecessary financial loss, job losses and prolonged uncertainty for creditors.

The delay between the enrolment of a case and a decision by a court could also significantly increase the costs for everyone, said Colin Strime, joint CEO of Fluxmans Attorneys and a specialist in insolvency law.

Ntlhane Makena, head of the insolvency department at ENS Africa, said the new court would put SA on a par with the rest of the world, where insolvency cases are, as a matter of best practice, dealt with speedily.

‘When international lenders and investors enter the SA market ‘they always ask about policy certainty and outcomes’. So we are meeting those best practice principles.’

The Sunday Times notes that Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland said the thinking behind the dedicated court was the same as that behind the dedicated Family Court, where there was an ‘obvious public interest’ that matrimonial litigation did not drag on.

Here there was a similar point of departure.

‘Can you have commercial dealings which result in the crisis of insolvency dangling for years? The policy choice is no,’ he said.

The Gauteng division was recognising what limited resources it had and ‘trying to organise the work in the most efficient way possible’. Girdwood said the general opposed motion court was fully enrolled to 3 November. 

‘This is the court where, almost always, insolvency cases (such as liquidation matters and applications for business rescue) are heard,’ he said.

Full Sunday Times report