Legal Articles and Guides

The first claims associated with the listeriosis class action could be paid out in mid to late 2020 at the earliest, according to Richard Spoor Attorneys lawyer Thami Malusi. If Tiger Brands settled the matter rather than going to court, that would shorten the process, he is quoted as saying in a City Press report.

In an application to buy more time to tackle Eskom claims of corruption and malfeasance against him and Trillian ‘head on’, Eric Wood, former business partner of Gupta kingpin, Salim Essa, says he has been left to wage a R600m state capture battle against the power utility on his own.

Two more Jehovah's Witness families have been taken to the KZN High Court (Durban) to force them to allow doctors to administer lifesaving blood to their seriously ill children. The two matters were added to the court's roll as a third set of parents planned to defend their refusal to allow their five-year-old son, who suffers from sickle cell anaemia, to receive blood transfusions, notes TimesLIVE.

An order of the Western Cape High Court brought protest action by Reclaim the City (RTC) on Site B in the Cape Town inner city to an abrupt end this week. According to a News24 report, as the housing activists were settling in for their first night in shacks they had erected that morning, police officers arrived and read the interdict out loud.

Jacob Zuma's son, Edward, has failed to pay R12 500 as settlement for his hate speech comments, reports TimesLIVE. Yesterday, the SA Human Rights Commission went to court to secure a warrant of arrest for Zuma. The Durban Equality Court heard that Zuma was disrespectful and disregarded the court order by failing to pay the money to Ohlange High School in Inanda.

The owner of the guest lodge who was found guilty of racism and hate speech remains defiant and has vowed to take his fight all the way to the Constitutional Court following a scathing judgment that described him as a racist. The Mercury reports André Slade – the former owner of the Sodwana Bay Guest house – said he was the victim of hate speech and racism after he was labelled a racist by the MEC for Economic Development and Tourism, Sihle Zikalala.

The Equality Court is to hear a case alleging discrimination by a bank – the first time such a case has come before this court. Cape Town-based usury expert Emerald van Zyl has taken his nearly 10-year fight against alleged banking abuse to the Cape Equality Court, seeking a ruling that FNB’s FirstRand Finance Company discriminated against more than 4 000 black customers by charging them 30-40% more than white customers on their mortgage loans.

Edgars’ right to collect more than R450m in club fees from those who buy on credit is under attack again as the National Credit Regulator (NCR) has applied – and been granted – leave to appeal against a Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) decision that Edcon’s club fees are lawful.

An agreement between lawyers representing listeriosis survivors and the next kin of about 200 fatalities to combine the cases against Tiger Brands into one class-action suit was certified by the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) yesterday, notes Business Day.

The provincial Department of Social Development has been cleared of wrongdoing for circumstances leading to the death of five-month-old Ava Barley at a Pinelands early childhood development (ECD) centre.

Racist guesthouse owner Andre Slade was dealt another blow when KZN High Court (Durban) Judge Esther Steyn upheld an earlier ruling by the Equality Court that found him and his partner, Katarina Krizaniova, guilty of hate speech, says a TimesLIVE report.

Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s Ingonyama Trust was on the receiving end of a decision by the Land Claims Court, when it ruled his ‘subjects’ were entitled to hold land in their names if they so wish. According to Rapport, the Ingonyama Trust intervened in a successful land claim by Zulu communities over 11 000ha of land adjacent to the trust land.

The Western Cape High Court has dismissed AfriForum's urgent application to have MPs interdicted from moving to adopt Parliament's Constitutional Review Committee report on the amendment on the Constitution to make way for land expropriation without compensation in what ANC MP Vincent Smith described as ‘a victory for South Africans’.

The Gauteng High Court (Johannsburg) is set to decide whether a BEE partner can be removed from a consortium for failing to rake in enough tenders, says Rapport. Dr John Tembalikayise (TJ) Lupepe, a dentist turned construction magnate and chairperson of the company Mdali, is requesting the court to interdict the Portugese construction company MotaEngil Construction SA from appropriating its 49% shares in local BEE venture MECSA for a nominal amount of R59.

More than R400 000 of illicit VBS Mutual Bank funds was used by Brian ­Shivambu, brother of EFF’s deputy president Floyd, as a deposit to purchase a R2.7m townhouse in Fourways, Johannesburg, according to a Mail & Guardian report. Documents it says it has seen reportedly show that various payments, ranging from R100 000 to R300 000, by Sgameka Projects referencing Pine Avon were made between October last year and January this year.