Business Law Focus

With vaccine rates remaining low in Africa and SA, the question of mandatory vaccines is high on the agenda early in 2022. In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth discusses the sticky question of enforcement, risk assessments and policy hurdles companies seeking a mandatory vaccine policy must overcome. He is joined by Johan Botes, Partner and Head of Employment & Compensation and Tracy van der Colff, Senior Associate, Employment & Compensation at Baker McKenzie to unpack the complexities and legal requirements.

In the latest edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth interviews Executive in the Employment Law practice at ENS Africa, Dion Masher, on redefining employment for the gig economy.

In terms of the Statistical Release on liquidations and insolvencies published by Statistics South Africa in July 2021, there has been a 21.5% increase in the number of liquidations in the first seven months of 2021 compared to the first seven months of 2020. This has not deterred SARS from collecting outstanding tax debts from defaulting taxpayers.

In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth speaks to Tax Executive at ENSafrica, Ntebaleng Sekabate, about the key tax considerations to keep in mind when a company is in financial distress.

Claiming and determining the veracity of VAT refunds is a perennial headache for both SARS and the taxpayer. In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth, interviews tax manager at ENSafrica, Annelie Giles, on the extent of the problem and what can be done to fix it.

Business Law Focus Editor Evan Pickworth speaks to Ashlin Perumall, Partner in the Corporate/MA Practice at Baker McKenzie in Johannesburg and fellow of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR).

The readiness (or lack thereof) for the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) in Africa, a rising tide of crypto fraud, the development of digital currencies in Africa like central bank digital currencies and stablecoins and how laws and policies are slowly evolving to adapt to rapid advances in digitisation are discussed.

In this edition of Business Law Focus editor Evan Pickworth interviews Peter Dachs, tax executive at ENSafrica, on the new regime for global corporate taxes and efforts by SARS to improve its own collection capabilities, especially against tax dodgers.

In this episode of the Business Law Focus podcast, Editor Evan Pickworth interviews Janet MacKenzie and Darryl Bernstein, experts from global law firm Baker McKenzie, on the implications of the recently enacted Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Act. The criminalisation of harmful data messages and the intersection between this Act and the Protection of Personal Information Act is explored. The interview also discusses the weak levels of data privacy protection in Africa, with data privacy laws, which govern issues like data security and breaches, currently present in less than half of African countries.

With businesses and the economy caught in a whirlwind of strikes, protests, lock-outs and retrenchments - on top of trying to recover from Covid-19 losses - Business Day Law & Tax Editor Evan Pickworth interviews Audrey Johnson from ENSafrica’s employment department on what the future holds from a labour perspective.

Baker McKenzie’s latest report - New Dynamics: Shifting Patterns in Africa’s Infrastructure Funding - shows the state of the African infrastructure market, and how the major global players’ approach infrastructure lending on the continent is changing.

The report’s data shows that multilateral and bilateral lending into Africa has declined - with investment levels falling successively in 2019 and 2020 compared to peak levels seen after the financial crisis. In 2019, bilateral and multilateral lending into Africa amounted to USD 55 billion, which drops to USD 31 billion in 2020. Over the last six years, the decline is significant - deal values dropped from USD 100 billion in 2014 to USD 31 billion in 2020.

This slowdown in infrastructure investment was attributable to a number of factors, including the pandemic. Economic contraction has affected Nigeria and South Africa, meaning that the region’s largest economies have not been feeding in growth as in previous years. However, market fundamentals signal a region with underlying resilience and, as the global economy recovers, finance will be unlocked. There are already positive indicators of forthcoming investment. Commodity prices are rising and landmark deals are returning. For example, mining multinational Sibanye-Stillwater recently committed ZAR 6.3 billion to South African infrastructure projects.

In the latest edition of Business Law Focus, Editor Evan Pickworth interviews ENSafrica’s Executive: Africa Regulatory and Business Intelligence, Celia Becker on the future of trade in Africa.

This follows the coming into force of the long-awaited African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement. The AfCFTA creates the largest free-trade area in the world, but the jury is out on how quickly this will translate into economic results.