Employee share ownership plans (ESOPs) have become popular in South Africa as a mechanism to drive companies’ Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) strategies and to align stakeholder and employee values. Amongst the numerous success factors of this complex area is the accounting for these complex arrangements. Several interacting aspects of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)…
The recent evaluation of South Africa by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the threat of ‘greylisting’ for various deficiencies linked to poor money laundering controls has led to the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) amending Schedule 1 to the Financial Intelligence Centre Act. Schedule 1 sets out which persons would be classified as accountable…
‘‘Sustainability reporting’ and ‘assurance of sustainability reporting’ are certainly not new concepts, especially in South Africa: ‘triple bottom ’line’ reporting was introduced in the King Report on Corporate Governance, 2002 (King II) and the King Report has advocated for assurance of sustainability information for many years. The landscapes of sustainability reporting and assurance thereof are…
Service delivery lies at the centre of all the spheres of government South Africa. Municipalities in particular are considered to be closest to citizens, providing key basic services. They achieve this obligation through the procuring of goods and services from suppliers in the private sector using practices that are guided by the Municipal Financial Management…
In a country like South Africa, the term ‘employee benefits’ means so much more than the cost-to-company incurred during that period − it embodies not only today’s food for breadwinners’ families but also the promise of a better tomorrow through the education of our youth, who hold the nation’s dreams and aspirations. It seems that…
The Companies Act 71 of 2008 sets out the timeframes to formulate a business rescue plan and the format in which it must be presented after you have accepted an appointment as a business rescue practitioner and have met with the distressed business’ affected persons. The success or failure of the rescue will depend on…
In five months’ time, insurers with a December year-end will leave IFRS 4 behind and will enter the new world of IFRS 17.1 The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued IFRS 17 in May 2017, 20 years after the project on insurance contracts started. In June 2020, the IASB issued amendments to IFRS 17 to…
First timers achieve a 78% pass rate in the first SAICA qualifying examination. SAICA has announced that 1 739 − a 59% pass rate compared to 64% in 2021 − of the candidates who wrote the first sitting of the 2022 Initial Test of Competence (ITC) passed. Of those, candidates writing for the first time…
We look at an often-overlooked section of the Companies Act and its implications for directors of financially distressed companies Business rescue has been an integral part of the South African legal and restructuring landscape for more than a decade and has since its inception served as an effective means through which financially distressed companies may…
Attending to your duties as a business rescue practitioner involves adherence to the legislative framework set out in the Companies Act. This contains strict timelines around deliverables and places the BRP in full control of the distressed company whilst rescuing it. This article explores the critical steps to be undertaken within the first 10 days…