Business Law Focus

Arena Podcast Network
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The Business Law Focus podcast series covers the latest and most important developments in business law and tax. Through exclusive interviews with leading experts in the field and the lawyers actually arguing the most important cases, these interviews cut through the noise to provide legal insights that matter for the C-suite, entrepreneurs and professionals.

  1. 1d ago

    Beneficial Ownership: The Compliance Blind Spot That Could Put Your Company at Risk

    Business Law Focus host Evan Pickworth interviews Ziyaad Moosa, an expert in business advisory and support at PKF, about the challenges businesses without sophisticated compliance departments face, particularly the risk of deregistration. Mandatory beneficial ownership reporting is a good example of heightened compliance standards: it is no longer simply a Companies Act technicality, but part of the basic governance hygiene of running a South African business, big or small. At its simplest, a beneficial owner is the natural person who ultimately owns or exercises effective control over a company, whether directly or indirectly. That sounds straightforward when one person owns 100% of a small business. It becomes more complicated when shares are held through other companies, trusts or more complex structures, or when effective control does not necessarily align with the obvious shareholding. The important point for entrepreneurs is that this is not just a requirement for large corporates with legal and compliance departments. Companies and close corporations must keep their beneficial ownership information up to date with CIPC. Beneficial ownership declarations are now part of the annual compliance cycle, and since July 2024, CIPC's system has prevented the completion of an annual return if the beneficial ownership information is not up to date. You must also generally report changes to beneficial ownership information within 10 business days. For a busy entrepreneur, this can easily fall between the cracks. You register a company, focus on customers, cash flow, employees and tax, and assume that because SARS returns and CIPC annual returns are handled, the company is compliant. That assumption can now be costly. CIPC has stepped up enforcement against entities that have failed to comply with beneficial ownership requirements. Consequences may include compliance notices and, potentially, court-sanctioned administrative fines. Because beneficial ownership compliance is also linked to the annual-return process, ongoing non-compliance can ultimately put the company on the path to deregistration. Deregistration is much more than an administrative inconvenience. CIPC has warned that the consequences can include frozen company bank accounts, disruption to suppliers and creditors, and potential personal exposure for directors in certain circumstances.

  2. Aug 22

    Business rescue or last-ditch defence? When the process comes too late

    In many cases, by the time business rescue is considered, the business can no longer be rescued. In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth interviews Dr Eric Levenstein, Director and Head of Insolvency & Business Rescue at Werksmans, about the misuse of the process and practical steps to ensure it is used more appropriately as a mechanism for intervention rather than reaction.

  3. Aug 14

    Moving Your IP Offshore? Beware the Related-Party Trap

    For South African technology businesses, entrepreneurs and companies looking to expand internationally, moving intellectual property (IP) into an offshore structure can seem an obvious next step. Software, platforms, patents, trade marks and other IP can become highly valuable assets, and housing them offshore may be attractive for international expansion, investment or broader corporate structuring. But there is an important catch: South African exchange-control rules regard IP as capital, and capital cannot be moved offshore without regulatory approval. In this edition of Business Law Focus, Sara-Jane Pluke, Head of Intellectual Property at Eversheds-Sutherland, explains to host Evan Pickworth that if the offshore entity IP is being moved into is in any way related to the SA business - same shareholders, common control, part of the same group - the deal is in related-party territory, and that's where the SARB gets genuinely strict. “If the offshore entity you are moving IP into is in any way related to your SA business - same shareholders, common control, part of the same group - you are in related-party territory,” says Pluke. In practice, very few related-party IP transfers are approved. Here's the regulator's concern in a nutshell - if a business sells IP offshore and then licenses it back to use in SA, they are effectively getting the asset out of the country while continuing to pay royalties on it from SA. That's revenue leaving the country twice over: once when the IP itself goes offshore and again every time a royalty payment follows it out. The SARB regards this as “double-dipping,” and it's a hard no. Sale and lease-back arrangements are prohibited even between unrelated parties. Importantly, Pluke also explains in the interview what can be done to achieve approval when there is no related party.

  4. Aug 5

    Copyright reform isn't over: What the Constitutional Court ruling really means

    While many have welcomed the Constitutional Court's long-awaited judgment on the Copyright Amendment Bill (CAB) and the Performers' Protection Amendment Bill (PPAB), South Africa's copyright reform journey is far from over. In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth speaks to Chola Makgamathe, General Manager: Legal at the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), about what the landmark ruling really means for creators, businesses and the future of intellectual property law.

  5. May 29

    Is regulatory red tape disincentivising investment in africa?

    In a world where each regional competition regulator has distinct merger control triggers and thresholds, assessment frameworks, regulatory powers, policy prerogatives and stakeholders to appease, it may become a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth unless a solution is found. In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth interviews Lesetja Morapi from Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer on the pressing need for the various regional competition regulators to co-ordinate and agree a framework that ensures that transactions with regional effects do not need to be filed with multiple regional regulators with overlapping jurisdiction.

  6. May 20

    Landmark Constitutional Court judgment clarifies scope of South Africa’s general anti-avoidance rule

    The 22 April 2026 judgment of the Constitutional Court in Absa Bank Limited and Another v Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service marks a significant development in South African tax law. For the first time, a higher court has provided authoritative guidance on the interpretation and application of the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) in section 80A of the Income Tax Act. In the latest edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth speaks to leading tax expert and AJM founder, Dr Albertus Marais, about the implications of the ruling — including why one of the court’s eminent tax specialists issued a dissenting judgment.

  7. May 14

    The jagged frontier of AI and law

    The recent withdrawal of South Africa’s Draft National Artificial Intelligence Policy by the minister of communications and digital technologies was an extraordinary and embarrassing saga. The very document meant to govern AI in South Africa had been compiled with the assistance of generative AI, and contained, on the minister’s own account, “various fictitious sources in its reference list”.

  8. Jan 30

    Expect an inclusive growth balancing act in budget 2026

    In this edition of Business Law Focus, host Evan Pickworth interviews Charles de Wet, a Tax Executive at ENS. Charles has more than three decades of experience advising local and international clients across multiple industries. Notably, he was part of the team at the South African Revenue Service that implemented VAT in 1991. As such, a key question in the interview is whether VAT could again become a barrier after the significant delays last year. De Wet also explores why a wealth tax should be off the table, how smaller businesses could face less red tape, and why excise duties should, in an ideal world, be tempered.

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About

The Business Law Focus podcast series covers the latest and most important developments in business law and tax. Through exclusive interviews with leading experts in the field and the lawyers actually arguing the most important cases, these interviews cut through the noise to provide legal insights that matter for the C-suite, entrepreneurs and professionals.

Information

  • Creator
    Arena Podcast Network
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    76
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Arena Podcast Network
  • Show Website
    Business Law Focus