Legal Articles and Guides

One of SA’s top real estate companies that has admitted being the unwitting source of the largest known personal data breach to date in the country claims to have ascertained that the dump of personal information – estimated at 31.6m records – includes the estimated income‚ addresses and cellphone numbers of the likes of President Jacob Zuma‚ Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and Police Minister Fikile Mbalula. 

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) in a landmark judgment delivered yesterday – the same day as President Jacob Zuma eventually appointed a new board of directors at the SABC – limited the powers of the Communications Minister in appointing and firing members of the board. According to a Pretoria News report, Judge Elias Matojane declared several clauses of the amended memorandum of incorporation (MoI) and the SABC charter in respect to the appointment, discipline and suspension of the three executive directors – the group chief executive officer, chief operations officer and chief financial officer – inconsistent with the Broadcasting Act and thus invalid.

Regiments Capital is suing the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund to recover lost fees and to possibly get reinstated, after its three-year contract was cut short. This, notes a City Press report, is despite Regiments allegedly misappropriating at least R232m from Transnet pensioners – with Transnet chief financial officer Garry Pita’s blessing – to benefit Gupta-linked Trillian. In a court application on Friday, Regiments demands that its replacement as the fund’s manager, Old Mutual, be removed. It wants a new tender to be put out, which would put Regiments back in the running for job.

KPMG SA was first alerted that all was not well with the accounts of Gupta firms it audited when the press started reporting on the landing of the Gupta's wedding aircraft at Waterkloof Air Force Base in April 2013. The embattled auditor's CEO Nhlamu Dlomu reportedly told Fin24 that an accumulation of ‘red flags’ in the Gupta's accounts – coupled with media reports – eventually compelled the firm to cut ties with companies linked to the family.

The Broad-Based BEE (B-BBEE) commission plans to issue about 50 preliminary and final findings against companies for contraventions of the B-BBEE Act, according to Commissioner Zodwa Ntuli. A Business Day report says companies will have opportunities to comment on findings before they are made final. The commission began investigating alleged non-compliance by 17 companies, including Nokia, MTN and Netcare, and verification agencies in August.

The advertising partner for Western Province Rugby (WPR) has laid criminal charges against it, after directors and its chief executive failed to provide the liquidated company’s ‘statement of affairs’ to the Master of the High Court, as required by the Companies Act of 1973.

Investors in Herman Pretorius’ Relative Arbitrage Trust Fund should prepare themselves for a return of as little as five cents in the rand, according to a provisional liquidation and distribution account filed by the liquidators. Die Burger reports that the account shows only R63m available for distribution.

Blue Label and Net1 have completed the R7.5bn acquisition of a 60% shareholding in Cell C, paving the way for the turnaround of the struggling entity. A Business Day report says Blue Label – which distributes cell phone airtime vouchers and SIM-card starter packs – owns 45% of Cell C, while electronic payment provider Net1 holds 15%.

Several disinformation websites registered this year to promote the ‘white monopoly capital’ (WMC) narrative have been traced to a web design and online reputation management company in India, according to a News24 report. It says it has succeeded in puncturing layers of protection to unmask the identity of a web design company that has left its fingerprints in the codes of these websites.

Software AG said yesterday that it was mounting an internal probe after a media report alleged it had paid kickbacks as part of a wide-ranging SA Government bribery scheme that has also ensnared fellow German software maker SAP. ‘Software AG is not aware of any non-compliant business practices in its SA operations,’ a company spokesperson said, but added: ‘Based on current media speculations, the company has started an internal review.’

If you plan to form a trust, you need to know about a new directive from the Chief Master of the High Court to all Master’s Offices in the country. The directive applies to all new trusts (those “registered for the first time”) by the Master.

The inquiry into timeshare investment will get to the bottom of the issues raised by complainants, is the assurance from Consumer Commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed as the National Consumer Commission’s (NCC) first round of public hearings into the timeshare industry got under way.

Slamming corruption in SA as a cancer ‘eating at the fabric of our society’, Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) Judge Ellem Jacob Francis yesterday set aside Prasa’s controversial R3.5bn contract with Swifambo Rail Leasing for new locomotives too tall for SA's rail network, notes Legalbrief.

After driving Optimum Coal into business rescue last year, thereby endangering almost 2 000 jobs at the mine, Eskom suddenly reached a settlement that gave the Gupta family a 75% discount on the R2.1bn fine it had levied on the company at the time it was owned by global commodities trader Glencore. Business Day says in March this year, Eskom agreed to accept a R500m settlement for the non-performance penalties it had levied on Glencore.

Levy collections are the life blood of sectional title schemes, and collecting them is likely to get harder with the economic fallout from our downgrade to junk status. So if you own property in a scheme, and particularly if you are a trustee of your body corporate, you need to know about the new SCA (Supreme Court of Appeal) decision in Body Corporate of Empire Gardens v Sithole and Another (240/2016) [2017] ZASCA 28 which puts at risk the body corporate’s right to apply for sequestration of levy defaulters.