Corporate and Commercial Law

Commercial law is governed by statutes, including but not limited to the Companies Act and several other acts. These laws regulate mainly the commercial environment in South Africa, but has not codified the whole of the commercial law environment of South Africa. Commercial law principles not regulated by statute, remain regulated by the common law principles of commercial law. 

In South Africa, the following regulatory bodies, without being exhaustive, enforce or guard the application / enforcement of the statutory regulatory framework: the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), National Credit Regulator (NCR), and The Competition Commission. The CIPC oversees the enforcement and compliance of the Companies Act and ancillary legislation, the NCR the enforcement and compliance of the National Credit Act, the Competition Commission monitors and investigates anti-competitive practices and so forth. 

Mechanisms, amongst others, like the Companies Tribunal and Consumer Tribunal attempt to provide efficient dispute resolution, but a question remains whether such dispute resolution mechanisms are, in fact, cost saving and effective. Opinions on this may differ, but the overriding difficulty that appears to remain is that such tribunals “findings” are more than often not binding on the disputing parties but advisory of nature. This may be understandable, as tribunals of this nature cannot be seen to substitute, by way of binding findings (unless the contrary is stipulated), the authority of our courts.