VIEWPOINT: Outlook cloudy in Africa

If you want to expand your business overseas, your choices are limited. Europe and other developed markets are debatably saturated, so the biggest opportunity lies in the undeveloped but burgeoning markets of Africa. Africa is seen as a land of opportunity, with masses of people desperately in need of limitless numbers of products and services,…

VIEWPOINT: Swedish lessons

I recently got back from more than two weeks in Scandinavia and my time in Sweden was a big unexpected surprise. I’ve done my fair share of travel, living abroad too. And Sweden was never really a consideration. Too cold, too boring, too not special. How wrong I was! The Swedes, with their famously high standard…

ANALYSIS: Security for costs

A new dispensation? The new Companies Act has removed the courts’ legislative discretion to require an impecunious plaintiff company to furnish security for costs. So what does this mean for defendants? By Willem Janse van Rensburg and Clayton Gow The repealed section 13 of the Companies Act 61 of 1973, together with its predecessor, section…

VIEWPOINT: Account ability

South Africa’s political punditry issues frequent calls for greater accountability on the part of our politicians and state. But they hardly any ever stop to make the obvious connection: before there can be accountability, there must be accounting. In his wonderful book The Reckoning, historian Jacob Soll shows how accounting has shaped kingdoms, empires and…