Perspectives – Legal Voices on Business

With the assent of Bill 96, An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec, Antoine Aylwin and Iara Griffith discuss the new Bill’s impact on the use of French in Quebec. In this episode of Perspectives, they review the main changes that will affect companies located in or doing business in Quebec in their day-to-day. They tackle the following themes: scope, the language of work, francization, the language of commerce, public signage, and finally, penalties and effective dates.

For more information, we invite you to consult our Resource Center and our Annotated Charter of the French Language as amended by the Bill; this will help you identify the changes and the various effective dates. Take our test now and get an idea of your company’s compliance with the changes.

In this podcast episode pension law partner Rosemary Hunter and Labour and Employment Law associate Tshepo Mokoana discuss the Constitutional Court judgment, Municipal Employees Pension Fund and another v Dineo Mongwaketse and another, handed down on 14 March 2022. In their conversation they discuss the Constitutional Court’s ruling, its impact and the finding that pension contributions of a person who was erroneously enrolled as a member of the pension fund must be refunded with interest. In addition the team discusses the finding that you do not need to have been a member, beneficiary, participating employer or board of a fund in order to be a ‘complainant’ as defined in section 1 of the Pension Funds Act (PFA).

Senior associates Venolan Naidoo and Daphney Willem sit down to chat together in this podcast recording titled “Can an employee be dismissed by an AI system?”. They discuss the role played by AI systems in the selection of candidates employment and the possible dismissal of employees. This is often quite a big challenge for organisations, especially with the rapid advancement of technology, and so they approach the subject in a practical manner by examining this topic through the lens of POPIA, as well as looking at the dynamics around employers and employees, and the impact of technology in the workplace. Venolan sheds some light on what employers need to consider when implementing 3rd party AI applications.

The commissioning of statements or affidavits is an imperative process that has been done in a particular manner over decades. However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown regulations forced the world to find new ways of doing things.

South African courts have followed suit by ruling that there is an acceptable alternative way of commissioning affidavits from the norm, and this is virtual commissioning. The team unpack the rules that govern the commissioning of affidavits, they look at recent judgments on virtual commissioning of affidavits, and whether this will be beneficial or not, and the risks and pitfalls.

Fasken Associates in the Johannesburg office Dispute Resolution & Litigation practice group Emma Alimohammadi and Andricia Hinckemann examine the damages as a result of a breach in terms of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (otherwise known as POPI or POPIA).

Section 22 of POPI, deals with a responsible parties obligation to notify data subjects of security compromises and may also result in civil action to be taken against the responsible party. An example of non-compliance with this section may include instances where an unauthorised person accesses or acquires the personal information of a data subject and the responsible party fails to notify the data subject and Information Regulator. Emma and Andricia discuss this specific section of POPIA in this episode of Fasken Perspectives.

Fasken Senior Associates in the Johannesburg office Labour & Employment Law Daphney Willem and Venolan Naidoo delve into the world of artificial intelligence, the impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution and the possible impact of the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) on workforce technology usage.

This includes from chatbots that attend to general queries; systems that train or coach individuals on best sales/marketing techniques; or biometric technology, automation of administratively repetitive tasks; cyber security or fraud detection; or robotic process automation in the healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics industries. These are already part of the changes employers are implementing as workplaces move further forward into the 4th Industrial Revolution.