News & Resources

I have seen media reports that the State will not be obligated to pay employees their annual salary increments this year due to the scarce financial resources of the State. Is this correct?   

Our company is owed money by one of our contractor companies who we helped with finance and provided us with personal sureties by the shareholders as security for the transaction. They have been making promises that they will pay for some time and we left it, but now we are getting worried about prescription. We are also unsure whether if we act against the sureties, prescription will be halted for the contractor or may continue and we lose our claim against the company itself. Can you advise?

My business is 26% black owned but has been excluded from a number of tenders because of pre-qualification criteria for tenders being set at being at least 51% black owned. I’ve seen in the news though that this practice has been scratched by the courts. Is this true?

One of the residents of the sectional title scheme I live in, constantly parks his vehicle in the parking bays designated for visitors. This is frustrating as there is limited visitors parking and often visitors are forced to park outside the scheme which is inconvenient and a safety risk. What can be done about this resident?

I recently had to sign a power of attorney authorising my attorney to act on my behalf in my property transfer. It just got me wondering about what exactly a power of attorney means and for how long it remains valid. Can you enlighten me?

I have a construction company which has been hard hit by the Covid-pandemic and although I have managed to keep our doors open and not retrench my employees, we are in dire straits. I understand that there are some tax relief measures which I can access to assist my company. Is this true?

I recently saw an article in the news saying that the Western Cape Department of Social Development was not responsible for injuries caused to a child in a day care funded by the Department. Surely this cannot be right and the Department should be responsible? 

In our sectional title scheme, it has become clear that many of the structures on the common property have been poorly built and are defective. However, the body corporate is uncertain whether it can take action against the developer for these defects and accordingly nothing is happening. Surely the body corporate should be able to do something?

The Minister of Finance has recently published proposed amendments to section 7C of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962. The proposed amendments to section 7C target not only loan-based solutions, which was the original intention of the provision, but also corporate estates that make use of preference share structures.

I’m a minority shareholder in a company that has been approached by a buyer willing to buy out all the shareholders. Because of Covid-19 the company has suffered financially and I know that the shareholders holding more than 75% of the company will want to accept the offer even though I believe it to be far below the market value of the shares. Is there any remedy at my disposal?

Our company wants to help out one of our oldest clients by allowing some of our labourers to work for a few months for the client on a project at the client’s site. The client has had to layoff staff during Covid-19 and we would temporarily help him out with our labourers. We would continue to pay our staff with the client paying us a service fee for the labourers and other support services. Our human resources manager however is concerned that we could be seen as labour brokers should we move forward with this arrangement. Would this be the case?

My ex-husband still has access to our shared cloud account. Unbeknown to me this meant he could see all my back-ups of messages, photos and other personal information. Our divorce did not end well and he is now sharing private and personal information of me with third parties to embarrass me and to try and portray me as a bad parent. What can I do to stop him?