Rebuild Your Trade: Returning to Business After Insolvency
A Structured Legal Foundation for Starting Over The question most business owners and directors ask after being declared insolvent is whether they can return to business as usual. In South African commercial law, most people can trade again after sequestration. But timing restrictions, legal capacity, and commercial regulations all become deciding factors before business activities […]
Keeping things fair in the business race
The purpose of the Competition Act 89 of 1998(“the Act”) is to promote the efficiency, adaptability, and development of the economy, and to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises have equitable opportunities. Certain practices, including restrictive horizontal practices, restrictive vertical practices, and abuse of dominance, are prohibited in terms of the Competition Act. The Competition […]
Everything you need to know about suretyship agreements
A deed of suretyship is an agreement that is concluded by a creditor and a third party. The essentialia of this type of agreement are that the surety (third party) undertakes to be liable to the creditor for the due performance by the debtor of his or her obligations in terms of the principal debt. […]
Legal remedy for contractors to enforce payment
In many instances, contractors put in all the work and comply with the terms of the agreement; however, they receive less or no payment. In the event that the contractor has performed in terms of the contract, but refused payment, there are legal grounds available to the contractors to pursue legal action and recover payment […]
Does legal prescription apply without your knowledge?
The Constitutional Court in the matter of Mtokonya v Minister of Police [2017] ZACC 33 dealt with the issue of extinctive prescription, in particular regarding whether section 12(3) of the Act requires a creditor to have knowledge of a debtor’s wrongful and actionable conduct, which gave rise to the debt, before prescription may start running against the creditor. Although the Supreme Court of […]
Choose your information officer wisely
When, in the early 1990s, the personal computer was becoming popular in South Africa, people were slowly but surely starting to migrate physical activity to a digital form. Soon, programs like Microsoft Word became a home and office staple. After the shift from physical data processing to digital data processing, came the shift from manual digital processes to automated […]
I’m in arrears – Can they start claiming my assets?
Have you ever heard about the Sheriff of the Court coming to collect your assets and auctioning it off in order to cover your unpaid debt? Is it legal and what are the procedures that must be followed in order for the Sheriff to obtain authorisation to attach your property? Is this even possible if […]
Debt review considerations
In these difficult economic circumstances, you may find yourself in a position where you are unable to pay your debt. The National Credit Act makes provision for debt management in the form of debt review by making an application to the court to restructure the payment schemes of all your creditors. Debt review is a […]
Preparing A Rapid-Response to Fake News
In the digital age, information is everywhere. At the click of a button a message can travel across oceans in the time it takes to blink. For the large part, it’s an incredible testament to human invention. But for some part, as with the spread of destructive fake news, it reveals our ugly side. In […]
Does force majeure apply during COVID-19
Common Law position – in absence of a “force majeure” clause A force majeure is an act of God or man (such as a war, strike, riot, crime, plague, or an event described such as a hurricane, flood, earthquake, volcanic eruption, etc.), that is unforeseeable, out of the reasonable control of the parties to a […]