Breaking any of our lockdown laws can be an expensive business, risking heavy penalties. If you are accused of a contravention and offered the option of paying an “admission of guilt” fine to avoid a court appearance, beware! It may seem like the easy way out to pay up and put the whole thing behind…
“…every landowner has a right to the lateral support and where subsidence or other destabilisation occurs, as a result of excavations on an adjacent property, the owner of the adjacent property will be liable in an action for damages irrespective of whether she was negligent or not.” (Extract from judgment below) It’s every homeowner’s nightmare…
Our law (in the form of the Protected Disclosures Act) encourages employees to disclose unlawful or irregular conduct in their workplaces without fear of reprisal. Why encourage it? “3 Reasons Why Whistleblowing is Important for Public and Private Companies” on the Compliance Line website here suggests that employers should actively encourage their employees to “whistleblow” because –…
“To sign a document means to authenticate that which stands for or is intended to represent the name of the person who is to authenticate” (quoted in the case below) We all know that verbal agreements, although fully binding for most types of transaction, are a recipe for uncertainty and dispute. It’s not just a…
“A stitch in time saves nine” (wise old proverb) The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown have opened up new avenues of profit for some businesses, but they have also subjected many others to the spectre of business failure. Unfortunately we can expect the level of bankruptcies to surge for some time to come, and…
“O brave new world” (Shakespeare) The COVID-19 pandemic will doubtless lead to many new developments on the legal front. For example, with widespread employee retrenchment now an unfortunate reality in our struggling economy, all employers, employees and trade unions should know of an important new Labour Court decision validating the use of remote conferencing for…
At long last the main provisions of POPIA (the Protection of Personal Information Act) have been gazetted, and they will commence on 1 July 2020. That means that the one year transitional period will expire on 30 June 2021. Don’t panic just yet, and ignore the many “fake headlines” in the media implying that you are…
“This Too Shall Pass. It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass” (Unknown) Entrepreneurs and the small businesses they run are bearing much of the brunt of our deepening economic woes. Some SMEs have prospered, others have sunk – most of us have just battled on, preparing for and dreaming of happier…
“You can be a good neighbour only if you have good neighbours” (Howard E. Koch) It looks as if we will still be under “restricted movement” orders for a while – even when we finally get down to Alert Level 2 and who knows when that will be. Tensions between neighbours are no doubt at…
If you are one of the many employees retrenched or put on short pay or unpaid leave as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and lockdown, you will be wondering how to cover the monthly instalments on your mortgage bond and other credit agreements. You have no doubt heard of the “payment holidays” banks are…