Legal Articles and Guides

Former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe has approached the SCA in a bid to overturn a ruling that ordered him to pay back R11m he received from the power utility. In April, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) dismissed Molefe’s application for leave to appeal against the January ruling that he pay back part of his ‘unlawful’ pension payout and the costs for counsel in the legal battle.

The former shareholders of Tekkie Town have launched another legal claim against Steinhoff International Holdings to recognise the terms of a conditional so-called ‘earn out’ bonus that would be paid in 2020 and which could amount to as much as R1bn, notes a Moneyweb report.

A battle between the community of Uitzig in Ravensmead and the provincial Education Department over the closure of Uitzig High School is under way in the Western Cape High Court. A Cape Argus report says the community wants the court to force the department to keep the school open after they indicated that it will close due to vandalism.

A group of asylum seekers will argue in the Constitutional Court today that all foreigners, including asylum seekers and refugees, in SA are entitled to apply for visas. A Business Day report notes they are approaching the court for leave to appeal against a decision by the SCA in September 2017 that overturned a High Court judgment, which declared that a 2015 immigration directive by the Department of Home Affairs was invalid and inconsistent with the Constitution.

Dirk Stoffberg is to inherit his stepfather’s Gonubie home – despite the fact that his wife first drafted three apparently fraudulent wills in which he was the main beneficiary. A Daily Dispatch report says Eastern Cape High Court (Grahamstown) Judge Jeremy Pickering ruled Stoffberg should inherit the home of his stepfather, Stuart Bruce Doveton Helps, after his wife Lesley drew up a will in which Stoffberg was named as the beneficiary.

Property magnate Nic Georgiou will have to repay a former Pickvest investor more than R10m in capital and interest after the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) dismissed an application to have a previous default judgment against Georgiou rescinded, says a Moneyweb report.

BP commissioned an independent company to carry out an investigation after a complaint from a customer that the diesel tank of his car was filled with water at its Clubview service station, and said this week that the diesel tanks and their nozzles at the site were found to be clean.

Businessman Mzwanele Manyi wants the SABC to pay him R144m ‘owed’ to the Gupta family for the business breakfast shows. Manyi acquired ANN7 and The New Age from the Guptas last year for R450m by way of vendor financing.

Coronation Fund Managers, one of the largest shareholders in Steinhoff when it announced ‘accounting irregularities’ in December, is taking legal action against the company, says Business Day. A statement follows last Thursday’s announcement that GT Ferreira and the vendors of Tekkie Town lodged demands with Steinhoff.

Western Cape High Court Judge Taswell Papier has ordered Prasa to make available audio recordings of a board meeting held on 1 December 2017. A GroundUp report says the case was brought by #UniteBehind, which claimed the recordings ‘will prove whether or not the board took the decision to disband the Legal Panel of Prasa’.

As lawsuits pile up against Steinhoff International – with banker GT Ferreira and Tekkie Town’s vendors joining the fray – former chair Christo Wiese insists that he has a strong case against the embattled retailer. A Business Day report notes the claims lodged by Wiese, Ferreira and Tekkie Town’s vendors add up to more than eight times Steinhoff’s value on the JSE.

The NPA, which has been on the wrong end of a battle with the Gupta family in two previous cases, is to brief Wim Trengove SC to oppose a third application by Gupta-related parties to lift asset preservation orders. In the latest application, scheduled for today in the Free State High Court, Oakbay CEO Ronica Ragavan, Ashu Chawla, Varun Gupta and Aerohaven Trading are seeking the lifting of preservation orders on assets worth R180m, notes a Volksblad report.

Property magnate Nic Georgiou has thrown in the towel in the SCA where he was challenging court orders obtained by investors who lost R2.6bn in his Pickvest property syndication scheme, Volksblad reports. The Gauteng High Court had ruled in favour of the Highveld Syndication Action Group representing 7 000 investors.

The Special Investigative Unit (SIU) wants Khuselani Security and Risk Management (KSA) to pay back just under R555m lost by Msunduzi over its allegedly unlawful contracts, says a report in The Witness.

Our law, in protecting the interests of children in particular, provides you with an array of options when it comes to enforcing payment of maintenance orders.  One of them is to ask the court to jail the defaulter for “contempt of court”.