Online tools to help SMEs stay compliant.

Legal contracts that form part of buying a property.

Govt department dealing with labour/employment issues

Entrepreneurs are by their nature, optimists. It takes commitment and a positive outlook to take on the hardships in building a new business. Too much time spent pondering the risks saps a venture of its vitality. Many businesses start trading without any proper legal agreements in place. But the hard lesson that many businesses have learnt is that these agreements become vital once the business is established. Here's how to formalise an informal agreement.

A look at some commonly asked questions about electronic communications and how legally binding they are.

In the past year or so I have been coaching many buyers of businesses, and giving legal advice on the wording of legal documents. Accordingly, this article is given mainly from the buyer's perspective. In particular, this article looks at how before buying a business, it is important to make sure you understand all the legal documents that you will be signing.

The National Credit Regulator (NCR) was established as the regulator under the National Credit Act No. 34 of 2005 (The Act) and is responsible for the regulation of the South African credit industry. It is tasked with carrying out education, research, policy development, registration of industry participants, investigation of complaints, and ensuring the enforcement of the Act. The Act requires the Regulator to promote the development of an accessible credit market, particularly to address the needs of historically disadvantaged persons, low income persons, and remote, isolated or low density communities.

When you have put so much into your own business, it's important to think about the company's future and your dependents' security, at the event of your or your business partners' death or disability. This is where a Buy and Sell Agreement would come into play. Buy-and-sell agreements eliminate uncertainty, since the surviving partner(s) pay(s) fair value for the acquired share of the business. Hence the needs of the deceased partner's heirs are also met. The surviving owners have immediate and unhindered ownership of the business.

The automatic-renewal clause within contracts in South Africa is fairly commonplace.

The Consumer Protection Act aims to protect the rights of Consumers by ensuring that the environment in which they operate is fair, accessible and sustainable. It also endeavours to encourage responsible Consumer behaviour.

The wild-west landscape in which some of South Africa’s retail and related business has been conducted has been tamed by the Consumer Protection Act, consumers and businesses have had to redefine their relationships, recognise a fresh equality of power and tread very carefully in navigating new ground. Consumers are now armed with more power than ever before. Here are the implications the Act may have on your business.

How au fait are you with the Companies Act, 2008? Do you know that the memorandum of incorporation now takes precedence over the terms and conditions.

It's important to understand the conditions of a lease before signing it.

Setting, tracking, and managing Service Level Agreements is an important aspect of customer relations if you are a vendor, and outsourcing management if you are a consumer of technology services. As such, Service Level Agreements should be negotiated up front as part of the outsourcing contract and consistently utilised as one of the primary tools of outsourcing governance. Here are some tips for drafting a Service Level Agreement, as well as the consequences of not having one in place (specific to ICT services).

When you're in a partnership, it's highly advisable to have a formal, written partnership agreement. While it is not required by law, a partnership agreement can give you a framework for defining each partner's obligations, and settling the conflicts, disagreements and other difficult-to-resolve issues that naturally occur in nearly every business relationship. Ultimately, it will help ensure the long-term well-being of your business. This article lists key points this agreement should cover.

Entrepreneurial success is not only determined by the ability to foresee opportunities in the marketplace, initiate (or take advantage of) change, and create value through solutions. One also has to have the right tools and business governance structures to create a successful business moving forward. Use this checklist to make sure you start your entrepreneurial journey and approach business governance the best way possible.

Contracts, tax legislation and other Acts relating to your business can be complicated and getting an attorney to help may be very costly. Of course, there is also the question of whether you even know what your legal obligations are. LawUnlocked provides an online tool that may be able to help you assess what your legal obligations are with regards to various aspects of running your business.

In the hype of big brands and big business, many people lose sight of the fact that a company is in essence nothing more than a group of people working together towards the common goal of year-end profit. But it is often this key characteristic of a company that determines its success or failure. Without a properly defined structure regulating the working relationship between shareholders and directors, a business can become weighed down by internal disputes, animosity and deadlock. To ensure your business partnership goes off without a hitch, look at these terms for a shareholders' agreement.

The CIPC was established by the Companies Act, 2008 (Act No. 71 of 2008) as a juristic person to function as an organ of state within the public administration, but as an institution outside the public service. Its main functions include the registration of Companies, Co-operatives and Intellectual Property Rights (trade marks, patents, designs and copyright) and maintenance thereof as well as the disclosure of Information on its business registers, among others. Find out more in this article.

Too often SMEs avoid entering into formal written legal agreements as they perceive such to be a costly exercise. Lawyers are ─ after all ─ not cheap! While there is merit in the argument that lawyers’ fees may, at times, be astronomical, the cruel reality is that ignoring legal risks may be even more costly in the long run, especially if something goes wrong in business dealings