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Recent Industry Articles

29 Jul 2014
By Ashersons Attorneys

Directors: Your New Risk of Personal Liability for Pension Contributions

“Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility” (P.T. Barnum) All too often employees of a cash-strapped business only find out too late (when the business finally fails and is liquidated) that management has been deducting pension fund contributions from their earnings and not paying them over to the pension fund. The losers of course are the employees, whose pension benefits are often seriously prejudiced. (more…)
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18 Jul 2014
By Ashersons Attorneys

67 Minutes for Nelson Mandela

"Mr Mandela has spent 67 years making the world a better place. We're asking you for 67 minutes." Nelson Mandela's birthday is on 18 July, and the call is out for people everywhere to celebrate his birthday by acting on the idea that each person has the power to change the world. Some of the Ashersons team members who joined iX Experience at their offices, hard at work making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the Amy Biehl Foundation who are handing them out to underprivileged people in and around Cape Town. Well done guys! #MandelaDay
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30 Jun 2014
By Ashersons Attorneys

The Shopper who Slipped: Duties and Damages

You go shopping and as you walk down a supermarket aisle you slip on a wet and slippery patch of floor, injuring yourself.  Do you have a claim against the store for your damages? You do indeed, but only if you can show that the store and its employees were negligent.   In a case recently decided by the Supreme Court of Appeal, a shopper sued a store for her injuries after she slipped on a section of floor left damp by a cleaner who had mopped the floor in a routine cleaning operation during a busy period in the…
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30 Jun 2014
By Ashersons Attorneys

Landlords: Managing Your Tenant’s Liquidation

In these hard times, you may well be faced with a situation where your tenant is liquidated (“sequestrated” in the case of an individual or trust, “liquidated” or “wound up” in the case of a company).  If that happens, what are your rights and how do you manage them? A recent Supreme Court of Appeal decision illustrates the principles involved. (more…)
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26 May 2014
By Ashersons Attorneys
Acceleration clauses: borrowers (and lenders) beware!

Acceleration clauses: borrowers (and lenders) beware!

An “acceleration clause” in a loan agreement (where the loan is repayable in instalments) provides that if the borrower fails to pay any one instalment, the full amount of the loan becomes due and is immediately recoverable in full by the creditor.  Inserting such a provision into a loan agreement is a sensible precaution for a lender to take – without it he could only sue for any overdue instalments, not for the full amount of the loan. (more…)
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26 May 2014
By Ashersons Attorneys
Armed robbery! Suing your security company – the final chapter

Armed robbery! Suing your security company – the final chapter

“South Africa is plagued by crime – often viciously violent, sometimes sophisticated and organised, often ridiculously random, but always audacious and contemptuous of the values we are supposed to believe in and the human rights enshrined in our Constitution …..” (Constitutional Court, below) Unfortunately it is often the most violent and vicious of the criminal gangs who breach all our defences by the simple expedient of impersonating police officers.  Regular readers of our newsletter will recall the traumatic story of a family who in 2009 fell victim, in their own home, to just such a gang. (more…)
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