Impact of China’s investment on the South African tax base The news that China has committed to invest approximately R200-billion in South Africa was greeted with much fanfare throughout the country. Approximately ZAR33-billion of this will constitute a loan to Eskom, which is particularly good news given the funding requirements of the entity. A loan will also be advanced to Transnet in the amount of ZAR4-billion ...
Is the singing of offensive songs a dismissible offence? The South African Constitutional Court recently handed down judgment inDuncanmec Proprietary Limited v Gaylard N.O & Othersin which it considered whether the singing of struggle songs, containing words that could be construed as offensive, warranted dismissal ...
Patent landscaping: the road to success Patent landscaping analysis, or patent mapping, involves the electronic search and analysis of the vast amount of available online published patent data in order to extract meaningful and valuable technical, business and legal information ...
Who’s interested in Primark? Is it simply those South Africans who can afford to travel to the UK, only to find that, thanks to the weakness of the rand, the only shop they can afford is ... Primark? The recent Supreme Court of Appeal (“SCA”) decision in the matterTruworths Ltd v Primark Holdingspertaining to well-known trade marks is of significance ...
Punitive proposed amendment to South Africa’s transfer pricing provisions Transfer pricing is a self-assessment mechanism that aims to ensure that taxpayers identify all potential cross-border transactions, operations, schemes, agreements or understandings that have been entered into between connected persons (referred to as “potentially affected transactions”), to ensure that all such potentially affected transactions have been concluded and implemented on an arm&rsqu
Earlier this year, the Minister of Mineral Resources (the “minister”) published a notice amending Chapter 4 of the regulations relating to explosives, binding in terms of the Mine Health and Safety Act, 1996. The regulations will come into effect at the end of the 2018 year ...
Towards the end of 2018, the South African Minister of Mineral Resources, Gwede Mantashe (the “Minister”), published the Broad-Based Socio-Economic Empowerment Charter for the South African Mining and Minerals Industry, 2018 (the “2018 Mining Charter”). It is indicated that “implementation guidelines” are to be published in the near future. What follows is a summary of a few of the salient features of the 2018 Mining Charter ...
The Companies Amendment Bill, 2018 (the "Bill") was released for public comment by the Minister of Trade and Industry on 21 September 2018. The Bill, if introduced in its current form, proposes a number of changes to the Companies Act, 2008. This snapshot review deals with only our “big five” amendments. 1 ...
The decriminalisation of private cannabis possession and use and the workplace In the recent decision in the consolidated matter ofMinister of Justice and Constitutional Development and Others v Prince; National Director of Public Prosecutions and Others v Rubin; National Director of Public Prosecutions and Others v Acton and Others(the “cannabis judgment”), the Constitutional Court considered whether it should confirm the decision of the High Court which declared various pr
The New Rwandan Labour Code: a mixed bag of pro-employer and pro-employee changes Effective from 6 September 2018, Rwanda’s New Labour Code (law n° 66/2018 of 30/08/2018 regulating labour in Rwanda) repealedlaw n° 13/2009 of 27/05/2009 regulating labour in Rwanda(the “Repealed Labour Code”), which has been in force for over nine years. This article gives an overview of the key changes introduced by the New Labour Code ...
WTF®: a trade mark perspective on millennial gibberish bySamera Naidoo ICYMI, Proctor & Gamble ("P&G") recently applied to register a whole lot of text/SMS talk abbreviations as trade marks. It caused a real storm and the mainstream press absolutely loved it! FOMOalert! DWAI, I’ll bring you up to speed...what happened here was that P&G applied to register some really unlikely trade marks including WTF, LOL, FML, NBD ...
Recent amendments to Mauritius’ Employment Rights Act (“ERA”) have brought about regulation into an area of employment law that many foreign jurisdictions have struggled to deal with: the gig economy, which has so far been characterised by short term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent contracts and the accompanying benefits ...
The South African Human Rights Commission (the “Commission”) is mandated by section 184 of the Constitution to promote respect for human rights and a culture of human rights; to promote the protection, development and attainment of human rights; and to monitor and assess the observance of human rights in South Africa. The Commission publishes annual reports in which it highlights what it regards as problematic issues and makes recommendations in this regard ...
When debt is reduced or written off, certain adverse tax consequences may arise for the debtor. The tax provisions dealing with the debt relief rules are contained in section 19 and paragraph 12A of the Eighth Schedule to the Income Tax Act, 1962 (the “Act”). The current debt relief rules were introduced by the Taxation Laws Amendment Act, 2017 and are applicable in respect of years of assessment commencing on or after 1 January 2018 ...
On 18 October 2018, the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Amendment Bill, 2018 was published for public comment. In terms of the Notice that accompanied the Bill, written representations on the proposed amendments may be furnished within 60 days of publication of the notice ...
The South African Competition Amendment Bill, 2017 is a step closer to becoming operational. During its plenary sitting in late 2018, the South African National Assembly (“NA”) passed a revised version of the Bill.On 1 December 2017, the Minister of Economic Development announced the release of the Competition Amendment Bill for public comment ...
On 1 February 2019, the South African Minister of Finance published the Financial Matters Amendment Bill (the “Bill”) containing a long-awaited amendment to section 83 of the Insolvency Act, 1936. Wepreviously discussedthe purpose of the amendment to the Insolvency Act, as well as a number of issues associated with the first draft of the Bill (the “Draft Bill”), which was published on 24 August 2018 ...
An unfortunate by-product of strike action in South Africa is the common occurrence of unlawful and sometimes violent conduct on the part of certain members of the trade union embroiled in the strike. It then frequently becomes relevant whether individual employees should be held accountable for the “actions of the masses” on the basis of the doctrine of common purpose ...
The Anton Piller order is an extraordinary thing. It’s essentially an evidence-preserving legal mechanism. It allows a party that feels that their rights are being infringed to approach the court as a matter of urgency and without notice to the alleged wrongdoer for an order sanctioning a raid of the premises of the alleged wrongdoer in order to find and preserve evidence that it believes will otherwise be destroyed ...
A recent judgment in a trade mark opposition in Seychelles is worth a look, not only because it involves a major international brand, but because IP judgments are quite rare in certain African countries. The opposition The facts were that a Seychelles company called Intelvision Limited applied to register the trade mark Intelvision (a stylised version of the word together with an antenna logo) for services in class 38 ...
The Mauritian Government announced in its 2018-2019 budget speech major changes to be brought to the Mauritian Financial Services sector which were then confirmed within the enactment of the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2018 on 9 August 2018. This was the result of intense pressure in recent years for Mauritius to align itself with global norms and transparency standards ...
It is becoming increasingly easy for employees in the workplace to record conversations, meetings and disciplinary enquiries without the consent of the employer to do so. The advancement of cell phone technology makes it easy for employees to do so without anyone knowing simply by placing their cell phone in their jacket or trouser pocket or on a table in a meeting ...
What exactly is unlawful competition? Unlawful competition is often lumped together with IP, and indeed there are obvious links: the common law action of passing off (closely related to trade marks) is a species of unlawful competition; and unlawful competition cases often involve technology, trade secrets and the misuse of confidential information, thus potentially bringing them within the scope of patent law and copyright law ...
