Legal precedent set as Odendaal’s assets forfeited in Steinhoff fraud battle

The SARB has forfeited to the state cash totalling R42m from Berdine Odendaal’s bank accounts, as well as her R18m property in Paarl’s Val de Vie estate.

It is time to clean up the mess

“When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.” – Henny Youngman This reflects how I feel lately when scanning a variety of publications every day to stay abreast of […]

Preventing a cyber-attack and insuring against the resulting losses

A recent study titled “The State of Cybersecurity in South Africa” provides an update by the same research company that conducted similar research in 2019. Some of the findings then were quite scary, […]

Freedom’s just another word

The government’s call for assistance from the business world to get the economy going again is hopefully a welcome change in the view that private enterprise is in competition with it. The perceived […]

Adding sugar to the Cofi?

Business Day reported on an FSCA briefing for the select committee on finance on Tuesday on the current status of the Conduct of Financial Institutions (Cofi) Bill. “The Treasury is processing the bill. […]

Managing customer perceptions and expectations in a post-Covid environment

A very popular management guide, Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, written by Wess Roberts in the late 1980s, contained reflections on leadership that formed the core of many a management course. Some […]

Why insurer changed its mind after declining a claim

The question of full disclosure at the time of application, as well as during the term of a policy, came to the fore in a recent article published in Rapport. After first repudiating […]

Stretching the boundaries beyond credibility

Access to free informal dispute resolution mechanisms was guaranteed to attract the attention of those with nothing to lose. Two recent decisions by the Financial Services Tribunal confirm the lengths to which some […]

Santam phasing out BI cover for power cuts

Santam, South Africa’s leading non-life insurer, issued an “operational circular” on 15 March that could have a significant impact on commercial clients’ existing cover for business interruption resulting from extended cover for losses […]

The onus of proving driving under the influence of alcohol

I commented last week on the difficulty experienced by insurers to obtain irrefutable proof where there are suspicions that someone involved in an accident may have been driving under the influence of alcohol […]

Will loyalty programme devices be used to refute claims?

My colleague Mark Bechard’s article on the increase in rejected claims because of reckless driving raises a few interesting questions about the possible use of technology when investigating such claims. The Ombudsman for Short-term […]

Keeping it simple is the solution

Ninety-eight percent of lawyers give the rest of us a bad name, quipped Steven Wright, American stand-up comedian, actor, writer and Oscar-winning film producer. This view was also applied to the financial services […]

Tribunal ensures justice for all

The establishment of the Financial Services Tribunal in terms of the Financial Sector Regulation Act of 2017 brought much needed legal certainty to financial advisers and the public. Its predecessor, the FSB Appeal […]

Short-term policyholder concerns, then and now

Events over the past year, both locally and internationally, have shifted the focus on a number of material terms and conditions in policy documents. Pre- and post-Covid A media release published in November […]

Adviser obligations regarding disclosure of material terms and conditions of a policy

The need to explain material terms was never more clearly illustrated than during the pandemic outbreak in February 2020 and the subsequent lawsuits that really harmed the industry’s reputation. Of course, if we […]

Causal event expenses and charges explained

We operate in an era where honest and clear disclosure is a prerequisite for providing advice that enables a client to make an informed decision. Coupled to this is the need to explain […]

Ombud calls adviser’s conduct ‘morally reprehensible’

How does one justify placing an 80-year-old Alzheimer sufferer’s funds in a syndication scheme that is being investigated by the South African Reserve Bank? A recent determination by the FAIS Ombud revealed details […]