South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, delivers his budget speech on 22 February and in this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth interviews Charles de Wet, tax executive at ENSafrica, about what may be in store for long-suffering taxpayers. This comes as the devaluation of the rand and rising inflation rates, the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and the continuing war in Ukraine pose a significant challenge for South Africa to restore the health of its public finances to a sustainable position. Load-shedding will also have a significant impact on the tax base ..read more

With SA's crucial mining indaba taking place from 6-9 February, Business Law Focus host Evan Pickworth interviews Ntsiki Adonisi-Kgame and Mihlali Sitefane from ENSafrica on whether policy support is sufficient to spark change and drive investment ..read more

With the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 27 grabbing global headlines, Business Law Focus Editor, Evan Pickworth, spoke to Mohamed Ghannam, Managing Partner of Baker McKenzie in Cairo; Oludare Senbore, Partner at Aluko & Oyebode in Nigeria and Kieran Whyte, Partner and Head of the Energy, Mining & Infrastructure Industry Group at Baker McKenzie in Johannesburg about the efforts taken by the governments in their countries to address this urgent need to harness renewable power. Such efforts are expected to provide exciting opportunities for investors in the African energ ..read more

Should South Africa not meet the international standard and compliance rules on money laundering as set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), it could be added to the FATF “greylist” as early as April next year. This could hit investment and businesses, but more importantly will certainly knock SA’s global reputation and standing. Business Law Focus host Evan Pickworth interviews Steven Powell, Era Gunning and Amelia Warren from ENSafrica about the risks and whether enough progress is being made to prevent this ..read more

Business Law Focus host, Evan Pickworth speaks to Francis Mayebe, Candidate Attorney and Virusha Subban, Partner and Head of Tax, Baker McKenzie Johannesburg about the power of SARS to search and seize your property without a warrant, and what the law says about this. We zone in on  a case that highlighted this issue and what businesses and individuals should know about the power of the South African Revenue Service to search and seize your property ..read more

In this edition of Business Law Focus host Evan Pickworth interviews Andries Myburgh, Ntabaleng Sekabate and Mansoor Parker from ENSafrica just ahead of the mining indaba. They dig into key legal changes in the sector and where the gaps and opportunities lie ..read more

In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth speaks to partners at Webber Wentzel, Sarah McKenzie and Maria Philippides about increasing public and regulatory scrutiny of the ESG claims being made by companies. Recent litigation is a salient lesson in risks posed by those who make misleading claims. There has been no direct or explicit greenwashing litigation in South Africa or ESG-related enforcement action by South African regulators, but South African legal and regulatory laws create the platform and cater for the possibility of greenwashing claims and litigation ..read more

In the next edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth interviews Mansoor Parker, Executive in the tax practice at ENSafrica. The spotlight is on the implementation of corporate due diligence and accountability of undertakings with business activities in the EU – and notably what this means for SA companies. The new Directive is likely to have far-reaching implications ..read more

Many South Africans are increasingly looking to move money into offshore pension funds and into offshore trusts. In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth speaks to international tax expert Dr Albertus Marais, founder of AJM, on the risks and severe penalties of not reporting payments to offshore trusts and how SARS sees the offshore pension contribution as taxable ..read more

In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth interviews Michael Hewson, founder and director of Graphene Economics on the potential impact of the moves towards a global minimum tax. Since July 2021, 137 countries (accounting for more than 90% of the global economy) have signed a deal aimed at ensuring companies pay a global minimum tax rate of 15% and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), estimates this will generate $150 billion in additional global tax revenues annually. However, the jury is out on exactly how much of this will find its way into the ..read more