Tag: Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA)

In a recent case of MM obo GM v the North West Province's Department of Health MEC, (782/2022) [2024] ZASCA 52, an appellant's claim for certain damages was struck from the roll by the Supreme Court of Appeal and her claim for personal damages was remitted to the trial court for determination.

The Gauteng High Court recently dismissed the appeal of Unitrans Holdings (Unitrans) against the Tax Court judgment which had denied a tax deduction for interest incurred. The court found that the interest incurred was not closely connected to Unitrans’ business operations as an investment holding company and that the purpose of the interest was not to produce income but to further the interests of the subsidiaries.

Should post-commencement financiers have a vote on business rescue plans? A critical look at Wescoal Mining (Pty) Ltd & Another versus Mkhombo NO & Others (2023-079991) [2023] ZAGPJHC 1097 (2 October 2023). On 2 October 2023 Judge Wilson of the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa endeavoured to ascribe a meaning to the undefined term "creditor" in Chapter 6 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 (the Companies Act).  

Events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and rising levels of cybercrime are encouraging insurers to revisit their policy wording to exclude certain events. Over the past three years, the world has suffered serious humanitarian and financial losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and catastrophic weather, political unrest and wars in central Africa, Europe and more recently, the Middle East.

The South African courts have by and large, consistently upheld an employer’s right to restrain an employee form unfairly competing with a former employer where certain conditions have been met. These include the employer being able to show a protectable interest and a properly drafted restraint.

The Supreme Court of Appeal has reaffirmed that if a written contract provides that any variation of its terms must be in writing, any purported variation by the parties which is not in writing will be void. Trying to get around the non-variation clause by relying on estoppel was not successful.

All taxpayers should arrange their tax affairs to obtain the best advantage and to pay the least amount of tax. This is a right every taxpayer possesses, and well entrenched in South African and international tax law. However, this planning must be done within the constraints of what the law allows.

A claim  in the case of Joubert and Others v Louw (CIV APP RC 08/2022) [2023] ZANWHC 102 (22 June 2023) was dismissed by the High Court on the grounds that the respondent lacked the requisite legal standing to litigate on behalf of her husband who was the party to the contract sued on.

The Supreme Court of Appeal held in June 2023 that a forklift is not a motor vehicle as defined in the Road Accident Fund Act of 1996 which defines a ‘motor vehicle’ as “any vehicle designed or adopted for propulsion or haulage on a road by means of fuel, gas or electricity …”.

In the matter of Medtronic International v CSARS (33400-19) ZAGPPHC, Medtronic (the taxpayer) brought a review application against the commissioner of SARS (the commissioner). This was due to the taxpayer being a victim of fraud, perpetuated by a Medtronic employee, to the tune of approximately R460,000,000.00. This ultimately placed the taxpayer in non-compliance with SARS.