Business Report‘s Donwald Pressly:The national assembly on Friday gave its unanimous nod to the Companies Bill and the Consumer Protection Bill, which are intended to improve the environment for business by preventing corruption and underpinning consumer rights.
The bills, which were piloted through the assembly by trade and industry minister Mandisi Mpahlwa, will be referred to the national council of provinces before President Kgalema Motlanthe signs them into law.
The Consumer Protection Bill, which Mpahlwa said was aimed at promoting “the social and economic welfare of consumers in South Africa”, will make …

Business Report’s Donwald Pressly:
“The final touches to legislation that hugely expands the concept of consumer rights in South Africa were carried out by the national assembly’s trade and industry committee this week.
The Consumer Protection Bill, which is now ready to go to a plenary of the national assembly before being considered by the national council of provinces, will allow consumers to direct complaints about any goods and services to a new consumer commission “without a whole lot of red tape”, according to ANC MP Ben Turok. He described the move …

Donwald Pressly reports on Business Report:
“Consumers are acting in a more discerning manner as a result of increases in the cost of living, “despite excessive and sometimes reckless marketing … in the run-up to the implementation of the National Credit Act”, according to the National Credit Regulator’s latest annual report, published last week.
Chief executive Gabriel Davel said feedback from credit providers indicated more discerning behaviour at all income levels. The National Credit Act came into effect in June last year.
Davel said the next 12 to 18 months would nevertheless be …

Tania Broughton reports on IOL :
Debt-ridden South Africans could find themselves caught in the middle of a legal dispute in which Nedbank is seeking an urgent High Court interdict against a Durban-based debt counsellor.
The bank says Johan Erik Juselius, of Fidelity Debt Counselling Services, is acting contrary to the National Credit Act in applying to magistrate’s courts for debt restructuring orders, without it and other creditors being given a say in court.
But Juselius is adamant that this is just a “bully boy” tactic and the bank is only trying to …

Tania Broughton reports on IOL :
Debt-ridden South Africans could find themselves caught in the middle of a legal dispute in which Nedbank is seeking an urgent High Court interdict against a Durban-based debt counsellor.
The bank says Johan Erik Juselius, of Fidelity Debt Counselling Services, is acting contrary to the National Credit Act in applying to magistrate’s courts for debt restructuring orders, without it and other creditors being given a say in court.
But Juselius is adamant that this is just a “bully boy” tactic and the bank is only trying to …

Donwald Pressly of Business Report :
Retail and wholesale companies have mostly come out in support of a bill that seeks to protect the consumer against defective or failed products, but retailer Massmart has argued that smaller operators might be hurt.
Massmart group commercial executive JB Currie said in a submission to the trade and industry portfolio committee on the Consumer Protection Bill that hapless retailers could face “a huge loss” for products returned.
He said the bill did very little to discourage consumers from lodging spurious complaints or using the threat of …

Getting payment out of the state is an extreme challenge for creditors at the best of times. But those creditors dealing with public schools as debtor should be even more cautious.
This is in light of the case of BASTIAN FINANCIAL SERVICES (PTY) LTD v GENERAL HENDRIK SCHOEMAN PRIMARY SCHOOL (SCA), the judgment of which was delivered in May 2008 by the Supreme Court of Appeal, the highest court in the country on non-constitutional issues . While there is a minority judge, Hurt JA, who decided that the state …