Our expertise

Corporate transactions are shaped by the Companies Act, sector-specific regulation, contractual allocation of risk and the governance requirements of the entities concerned. We advise on the structure, negotiation, approval and implementation of transactions, and on the rights and duties that arise when corporate relationships become contested.

• Mergers and acquisitions, including public and private transactions
• Affected and fundamental transactions
• Schemes of arrangement and disposals of all or the greater part of a company’s assets or undertaking
• Corporate governance and directors’ duties
• Shareholder agreements and constitutional documents
• Joint ventures and strategic alliances
• Due-diligence investigations
• Restructurings, demergers and spin-offs
• Share incentives
• Appraisal rights and other shareholder remedies

We advise on the contracts and legal structures through which businesses operate. Our approach is to identify the commercial objective, allocate risk clearly and produce documents that can be understood and implemented by the people who must use them.

• Sale-of-business and asset-sale agreements
• Supply, distribution, agency and marketing agreements
• Service-level, outsourcing and management agreements
• Franchise arrangements
• Commercial leases
• Employment and restraint-of-trade agreements
• Confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements
• Software-development, licensing and technology agreements
• Contract interpretation, performance, cancellation and enforcement

Regulated businesses and transactions require advice that accounts for both the governing legislation and the practical operation of the regulator concerned. We advise on compliance, disclosure, investigations, enforcement and the lawful exercise of regulatory power.

• Companies and takeover regulation
• Financial-markets and exchange-related regulation
• Proceedings before statutory and regulatory bodies
• Regulatory investigations and enforcement processes
• Professional regulation and disciplinary proceedings
• Public procurement regulation
• Sector-specific compliance and statutory interpretation

Administrative law requires public power to be exercised lawfully, reasonably and procedurally fairly. We advise both private and public-sector clients on the validity of administrative action, access to information and the proper exercise of statutory powers.

• Administrative reviews and appeals
• Access to information under PAIA
• Public procurement and tender disputes
• Proceedings before statutory bodies
• Legality reviews and challenges to the exercise of public power
• Procedural fairness and reasons for administrative decisions

We specialise in complex corporate, commercial and regulatory disputes. We act in litigation, arbitration, mediation and negotiated resolution processes, and we remain alert to the commercial consequences of procedural and strategic decisions.

• Shareholder, governance and appraisal disputes
• Contractual claims, cancellations and specific performance
• Regulatory and administrative-law disputes
• Business rescue, insolvency and liquidation matters
• Property, lease and sectional-title disputes
• Insurance and infrastructure disputes
• Intellectual-property and trade-mark disputes
• Defamation, dignity and personality-rights claims
• Professional and institutional complaint proceedings

We advise on property transactions from agreement to registration. Our conveyancing and notarial practice attends to the legal and procedural requirements necessary to transfer, secure and regulate rights in immovable property.

• Residential and commercial transfers
• Property sale agreements and leases
• Conveyancing certificates and deeds-office searches
• Servitudes, subdivisions and consolidations
• Sectional-title registers and transfers
• Notarial deeds, antenuptial contracts and life-partnership agreements
• Notarial bonds
• Related applications, consents and endorsements