Legal Articles and Guides

More than 225 applicants, mostly from Gauteng townships, have launched a suit in the Constitutional Court, claiming damages from the big banks for home repossession abuse. A GroundUp report says the applicants are claiming R60bn from the banks for unlawful repossession of homes since the Constitution came into effect in 1994.

The NPA has revealed that its Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) had frozen two hidden bank accounts in Israel, containing around R100m, of fugitive fraud suspects Ronald Bobroff and his son Darren, says report on the IoL site. ‘The huge freezing order was the result of excellent co-operation between both the South African and Israeli authorities,’ the NPA said.

A pensioner who invested in various property syndication schemes promoted and marketed by Sharemax Investments and Propspec, and was seeking the repayment of R1.54m he invested and lost in these schemes, has had his complaint referred to court. Pieter Taljaard filed eight complaints with the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (Fais) Ombud in 2012 on the investments, according to a report in The Sunday Indpendent.

A young boy who suffered a head injury after being knocked down by a car in November 2006 has been let down by the law after his attorney first accepted a paltry Road Accident Fund settlement and then apparently stole the money. A News24 report says while the fund considers the matter closed, new lawyers are now attempting to make good and reopen the case to secure a better payout for the child.

Veteran attorney and former co-chair of the Law Society of SA Silas Nkanunu has fallen foul of the society’s provincial arm, which is seeking to interdict him from practising until he gets his fidelity fund certificate, says a Daily Dispatch report. The Cape Law Society claims in court papers that Nkanunu – a partner in Port Elizabeth firm Silas Nkanunu & Van Loggerenberg – has been practising throughout 2017 without a fidelity fund certificate.

Aerios, the company that lost its advertising rights at the Newlands rugby stadium with the liquidation of the Western Province Rugby Union (WRPU), is now claiming damages of R271m from WP Rugby (Pty) Ltd, Die Burger reports. Aerios also issued subpoenas to the directors of WP Rugby to testify in the section 417 investigation scheduled for the end of the month.

Associated Motor Holdings, a subsidiary of Imperial Holdings, is being sued for more than R23m by a former group financial manager who claims she was discriminated against because she is a black woman. According to a Business Day report, Adila Chowan claims she was dismissed from the company in 2015 after enduring insults directed at her by Imperial Group CEO Mark Lamberti, the respondent in the matter being heard in the Gauteng High Court.

Taxpayers will have to pay for the pain inflicted on a Mahikeng man by the police, which started with a complaint by a neighbour that he had assaulted his stepdaughter (3). According to a report on the IoL site, Petrus Tshisi was left with injuries across his body, before he was thrown into a police vehicle and locked up in a cell for a few hours. Tshisi claimed R1.2m in damages from the Police Ministry, saying the incident not only left him with physical scars, but post-traumatic stress disorder as well.

Buffalo City Metro councillors want the city to approach the High Court for an interdict to prevent disgruntled residents from closing off the Zwelitsha wastewater treatment works project when they protest. A Daily Dispatch report notes that when protesters close the project, the metro loses millions of rands.

KZN High Court (Durban) Judge Dhaya Pillay has granted Durban City officials leave to appeal her April ruling that they were personally liable for the costs of court action following their bungling of an R80m tender. The Mercury reports that Westwood Insurance Brokers took the city to court last year over a three-year water loss insurance tender it lost to South West Brokers, claiming that South West had not complied with an undertaking for water leak insurance.

It is not a question of whether the school children will be fed, but of who will feed the school children and derive the profit therefrom.’ The Mercury reports this is how the KZN Department of Education has – in court papers – described the case against its ‘corrupt’ awarding of a R1.4bn tender for the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) in the province.

Forensic investigators at the RAF handed over 707 cases to the police after discovering fraud caused either by staff or illegal claims made by the SA public in the 2016/17 financial year. A Daily Dispatch report says in the last three months in the Eastern Cape, seven cases have been referred to police from 153 complaints received by the RAF, 109 of which have already been finalised and closed during the period to the value of more than R147m.

A recent High Court judgment of Abigak 1 General Trading & Investment CC v Gani and Another; Gani and Another v Balkin and Others (1184/16; 6620/16) [2017] ZAGPJHC 126 is yet another reminder of how essential it is to comply with all necessary formalities when entering into any sort of agreement, particularly when dealing with the sale of property.

The City of Johannesburg is set to clamp down on developers and builders who build without approved plans and approvals. In what The Star reports is to believed to be a serious precedent, the city is in the processing a back-dated interdict against a development company, Balwin Properties (Pty) Ltd, for the illegal construction of some 1 000 units in Crawthorne.

A sting operation by the SAPS, the Hawks and Interpol has foiled a human-trafficking incident that could have led to at least 14 young women from as many countries falling prey to a fake Internet modelling competition, notes a Sunday Tribune report. Among the women who were lured to the web-based scheme was a 24-year-old South African from Bloemfontein, while others came from as far as Barbados and several Asian countries.