Intelligence

The Regulation of Trusts Bill, 2026 seeks to repeal South Africa's Trust Property Control Act, 1988, introducing sweeping changes to trust law including expanded beneficial ownership disclosure requirements, enhanced trustee duties, and new criminal penalties. Will these modernization efforts align South Africa with international transparency standards, or will the onerous compliance obligations discourage competent professionals from serving as trustees?

When acquiring a business, the purchase price often reflects intangible assets like customer relationships, reputation, and market position. How can purchasers protect the goodwill they've paid for when sellers may be positioned to immediately compete using the same relationships and knowledge that contributed to the transaction value?

South Africa's most significant transactions reveal a fundamental shift in how strategic assets are valued and controlled. From Pepkor's fintech consolidation to Anglo American's De Beers sale, buyers are pursuing established market positions, but regulatory conditions and competitive constraints are limiting how freely these acquired platforms can be deployed.

Regulators worldwide are accelerating rule-making at an unprecedented pace, creating a widening gap between compliance expectations and organizational capability. South African boards face mounting pressure across AI governance, financial crime prevention, and climate disclosure, with King V's outcomes-based framework now demanding measurable evidence that governance practices actually work. The question is no longer whether organizations can tick compliance boxes, but whether they possess the integrated ov

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in South African workplaces, a critical gap has emerged: while the majority of employees are actively using generative AI tools...

The Regulation of Trusts Bill, 2026 has been presented as the long-awaited replacement for the Trust Property Control Act 57 of 1988. It may appear to be a legislative update intended to modernise trust administration and reflect developments in the law since the current framework was enacted nearly four decades ago. Its scope extends well beyond modernisation.