Legal Articles and Guides

Iqbal Survé, chair of Sekunjalo Investment Holdings and executive chair of Independent Media, says he has written to the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) and Parliament's Standing Committee on Finance to request meetings about ongoing disputes with the state-owned asset management company, notes Fin24.

Provisional liquidators appointed to seize control of failed SA Bitcoin trader Mirror Trading International (MTI) are looking to widen the scope of their inquiry. They are wanting to extend their powers to include the right to call witnesses to an insolvency inquiry, appoint investigators and solicit information from banks, said Herman Bester, one of four interim supervisors appointed to begin work on the matter, according to a Bloomberg report on the Moneyweb site.

Former Steinhoff boss Markus Jooste has lodged an appeal against the fine of R161m imposed by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) for insider trading, Die Burger reports.

SA Breweries (SAB) is to challenge the constitutionality of the blanket ban on alcohol sales, which was re-introduced late in December in a bid to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Insurance group Santam says it has started the process of assessing claims related to contingent business interruptions due to Covid-19, including those previously rejected in the months after the national lockdown commenced in March.

The Auditor-General has confirmed that the Defence Department has been invoiced to the tune of R260m for Heberon Interferon-Alpha-2B, an unregistered medical drug from Cuba.

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said the power utility had recovered more than R1bn from companies that played a role in state capture, notes a TimesLIVE report.

Shareholders who instituted claims against Steinhoff will probably only receive payments from 2031 if the company is liquidated. A report in Die Burger says this scenario is detailed in an explanatory note from the company that had to be issued to seek support for its proposed court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement to settle claims.

Absa Bank is pressing criminal charges against an employee who has subsequently been suspended for illegally accessing and sharing customer information with third parties, the bank said yesterday, according to a Business Day report.

A Cape Town company that has been found guilty by the B-BBEE Commission of violating the B-BBEE Act by fronting black employees as shareholders to obtain fishing rights, claims it had no intention to defraud anyone.

According to revelations in a City Press report, Edwin Sodi’s Blackhead Consulting is still doing big business with government. It says that on top of the controversial R255m Free State asbestos tender, Blackhead Consulting also allegedly received R517m worth of tenders from the Gauteng provincial government from 2014 to date.

The COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdown in South Africa has brought the legal considerations of force majeure into sharp focus across multiple industries, particularly in engineering and construction circles.

The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has imposed a R122.9m fine on Markus Jooste for insider trading on the day of the collapse of the Steinhoff share price in December 2017 when admissions of ‘accounting irregularities’ and his sudden resignation came to light, but there's every reason to believe he will appeal the matter, possibly all the way to the Constitutional Court, which would drag it out for years.

SAA is again in the line for liquidation following the failure by government to secure the R10.1bn required to fund the business plan by yesterday's deadline.

Edcon has announced that the sale of parts of the Edgars business in SA to Retailability (Pty) Ltd has been implemented, with all approvals from regulatory authorities and all conditions precedent either fulfilled or waived.