South Africa

Recent Articles

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  16/01/2025

  International

  CMS Expert Guide on Beauty

  With a highly circumspect online and IRL consumer, the beauty industry is facing increasing scrutiny on everything from ingredients to their supply chain. For those offering treatment services in particular, which has until now been the wild west of wellness, there’s a shift in consumer demand for transparency and accountability – namely a desire for better regulation and insurance. This follows well documented horror stories in national press worldwide of those travelling to secure these services at bargain prices with catastrophic results.This Expert Guide on Beauty considers...

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  14/01/2025

  South Africa

  The Employment Equity Amendment Act

  The Employment Equity Amendment Act 4 of 2022 (“Amendment Act”) was published on 13 April 2023 with the effective date to be proclaimed by the President. The Amendment Act has now come into effect on 1 January 2025 following the proclamation by the President by way of notice in the Government Gazette on 12 November 2024.The purpose of the Amendment Act is to introduce amendments to the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 (“EEA”). In terms of the Amendment Act, the following amendments are noteworthy for South African employers:1. People with disabilitiesThe definition of “people...

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  10/12/2024

  International

  Construction contracts and choice of law for non-con­trac­tu­al obligations: risks and opportunities

  Non-contractual claims can in certain circumstances provide additional rights of action which are not otherwise available under a construction contract. The ability to choose the law governing such rights therefore provides an opportunity to employers and contractors to influence the extent to which such claims can be brought. A growing number of countries now permit parties such a choice, either through their domestic conflict of laws rules or as part of their arbitration law. In this Law-Now, we provide a summary of the relevance of non-contractual claims to construction disputes and some recommendations...

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  28/11/2024

  International

  CMS’s insights on COP29 themes

  The discussions at COP29 Azerbaijan show how difficult it is to achieve global environmental goals. CMS lawyers have been reflecting on the themes of the conference in short videos and articles, housed on the CMS COP29 hub.A summary of CMS’s coverage is below and if you’d like to hear directly from the CMS COP29 delegates, now home from Baku, please join their discussion on Friday 29 November by registering here: CMS at COP29 online sessionBridgett Majola reflects on the need to align climate finance contributions with global needs and the current situation in Africa.Munir Hassan discusses...

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  25/11/2024

  International

  Pre-hedging: IOSCO publishes delayed Consultation Report

  On 21 November 2024, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (“IOSCO”) published a consultation paper in response to concerns about the appropriateness of pre-hedging practices raised by various market participants, standard setters and national and supra-national authorities. In short, pre-hedging is the well-established practice by which dealers in certain markets look to hedge their exposure to anticipated client orders for a number of reasons, including to enable the dealer to take on the risk of the client order once confirmed, and to offer a competitive price.BackgroundEuropean...

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  19/11/2024

  International

  ESG update: transition planning, sus­tain­ab­il­ity disclosures and enforcement

  A lot has happened in the world of ESG over the last few weeks. We have seen important announcements from the UK Government, the conclusion of COP16 and the ongoing COP29 (which you can read about here, here and here). We have also seen some important updates from the UK, EU, US and international bodies relating to transition planning, sustainability disclosures and enforcement action in respect of corporate reporting. We discuss some of these developments below.A. Transition Planning1. TPT publishes final reportOn 25 October 2024, the Transition Plan Taskforce (“TPT”) – which...

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