Category Archives: General

Well, 2018 has certainly been an eventful year! And from the looks of things, 2019 looks to be equally interesting. As the year draws to a close, now is a good time to pause, reflect, and give thanks for all that we have to be grateful for. And we truly treasure our subscribers, supporters and loyal fans! Thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve you. Our heartfelt gratitude goes to all our readers and customers, without whom our business could not exist. We thank you for all the support and encouragement that we continue to receive.

As most employers should know by now, dismissing an employee entails a two-pronged approach:

• Substantive fairness: the reason for the dismissal needs to be fair and justified; and
• Procedural fairness: the employer must hold a disciplinary hearing before dismissing an employee.

But what if the employee acts in such an appalling, inexcusable, unforgivable and utterly despicable manner that even an instantaneous dismissal seems too light a sentence? Is an immediate and unequivocal “You’re fired!” – without the benefit of a hearing – ever justified?

The rights of women undoubtedly took centre stage in 2017, culminating in the #MeToo campaign being crowned Time Magazine’s person of the year. Women are finally finding their voices and announcing to the world that enough is enough. But it isn’t just movie moguls, celebrities and other perpetrators in general who risk coming under fire for mistreating women. Employers should also take heed: complacency can be costly.

With every right comes a responsibility. And nowhere is this more apparent than with the right to freedom of expression. The ability to voice our opinions and express our individual views is indeed liberating. And certainly for a country like South Africa it is refreshing after being imprisoned for so many decades in the iron fist of apartheid’s censorship and indoctrination. But there are unfortunately still many people who simply don’t give a thought to the responsibility associated with freedom of speech. The responsibility to respect other people’s right not to be discriminated against. If nothing else, South Africa’s tumultuous past should have taught us how destructive hate speech is.

People who hold minority shares in a company often express concern about their rights being bulldozed by majority shareholders. But being the minority doesn’t necessarily mean you’re left without recourse where you find that you’re being unfairly treated. The rights of minority shareholders came under the spotlight in a recent court case.

In 1987 two enterprising individuals decided to start a business together and registered a company in which they were both named as the shareholders and directors. In due course new shareholders bought into the company, bringing the total number of shareholders to five. Over a period of time, three of the shareholders, who collectively held the majority shares in the company, started operating the business in a manner that undermined and prejudiced the two minority shareholders. Amongst other things, the majority shareholders:

As 2017 draws to the end, we look back on all that we have achieved over the past year. And what a year it has been! In the 10 years that we have been operating, we have remained ever-aware of the evolution of our industry and the changes in the way people do business. This has driven the constant changes and improvements in our site and service offerings. Undoubtedly, the highlight of our year has been launching our new-and-improved Agreements Online website – the third major redesign in our 10-year-old life.

You’re lost in a complicated thought-process and the phone rings. Absently you answer it. It’s some guy whose name you didn’t catch, asking deeply personal questions like whether there’s enough money in your bank account to cover your credit card if you die. As you politely extricate yourself from the call, you see that another wayward email has nipped through your security net – this one is trying to sell you a discounted holiday to some secluded island. As you finally kill the call and junk the mail an SMS pings for your attention – you’ve been pre-approved for a loan! You seriously contemplate using that loan for that island holiday, if for no other reason than to escape this seemingly incurable marketing epidemic. But here’s the thing: consumers are finally receiving protection against these ploys.