Legal Articles and Guides

Former SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng is claiming R16m he says he is owed by the bankrupt broadcaster for brokering a controversial content deal with pay-TV giant MultiChoice. The ex-SABC boss has responded to a civil claim lodged by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to recover R21m from him with his own counterclaim against the broadcaster, says a Sunday Times report.

‘The decision by EFF leader Julius Malema to ban certain media organisations from covering EFF events or briefings directly implicates the proper functioning of the democracy and it is highly unlikely that the court will sanction the limitation of the right.’

The SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) said it was ‘appalled’ by EFF leader Julius Malema’s call to ban investigative journalism units amaBhungane and the Daily Maverick’s Scorpio from attending their party events, including press conferences.

EFF leader Julius Malema has banned investigative journalism units amaBhungane and Daily Maverick's Scorpio from attending party events. He made this announcement during the EFF memorial service for former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

The Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) says it has 'discomfit' in the labelling of a product containing 0.3% alcohol as 'non-alcoholic' even though it was within the law to do so.

A second appeal panel, led by Judge Bernard Ngoepe, has ruled that the Chicken Licken advert that parodied colonialism, was offensive. The advert will remain banned, reports TimesLIVE.

Colonialism was a no-go zone for advertising humour, the appeal committee of the Advertisting Regulatory Board (ARB) has ruled. The committee upheld an earlier ruling that the 'Big Mjohnan' Chicken Licken ad was offensive and must never be aired again, notes TimesLIVE.

Online car buying portal WeBuyCars.co.za was not misleading in promising to buy and sell any make or model of car in its adverts, the Advertising Regulatory Board has ruled. Complainant Dennis Sibuyi, responding to the online company's adverts, said when he tried to sell his 2016 BMW X6M for R1.4m (its value) he was told he could not because the company did not purchase vehicles worth more than R1m.

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has started work to recoup almost R33m on behalf of the cash-strapped SABC and the government. R21.7m of this amount would possibly be retrieved from former SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng, according to a News24 report.

The SABC was 'technically insolvent' and was unable to fulfil its financial obligations, CEO Madoda Mxakwe said yesterday. 'If we were a private company, we would have been recapitalised,' he said at a briefing with reporters in Johannesburg, on the dire financial situation at the public broadcaster. He said the threat of commercial insolvency was also increasing.

A complaint to the Press Ombudsman that Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini's proper title was not used every time he was mentioned in a Daily Dispatch story, has been dismissed. A News24 report notes that in the complaint, ‘Tristan Gouws’ complained that in the story, Zwelithini's name was mentioned seven times without his ‘title, status or surname’ being used.

There is ‘no implication’ that black people are more irresponsible than white people when in comes to insurance. A TimesLIVE report says this is the gist of an Advertising Standards Authority ruling following a complaint against a series of Budget Insurance commercials. In one of the television commercials‚ a character suggests he will insure his car next month while it rests on bricks after the wheels were stolen.

The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has emerged victorious in a lengthy legal dispute centring around a 'racist' movie, Vanilla Gorilla. The Labour Appeal Court ruled in favour of the IDC in the matter initially brought by one of the corporation's managers, Tracey Roscher, notes Times Select.

The Advertising Standards Authority has issued a lengthy ruling about the three f-words: effing, fricking and fucking, concluding that 'fricking' was child-friendly. Times Select says the 1 569-word ruling, made after analysing the Oxford Dictionary, was in response to a complaint by Meryl Turner about a radio advert for on 5FM for Webuycars.co.za that included the phrase 'fricking painless'.

Although raising concern about the need to balance the right to freedom of expression with cultural rights and his insistence that the filmmakers’ rights to freedom of expression could not override the rights to dignity of Xhosa people, Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) Judge Joseph Raulinga has ruled that the appeal tribunal process for Inxeba (The Wound) was legally flawed, and should be reviewed and set aside.