The new Companies Act
and King III –
will they reduce corporate failures?
By Alastair Dixon, Director, and Stephen Kennedy-Good, Associate, of the commercial department at Deneys Reitz Inc.
Alastair Dixon Director Alastair Dixon has been a partner at Deneys Reitz since March 1994. He practises in the commercial department of the firm and has considerable expertise in company law, mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructurings, with particular emphasis on JSE transactions. He holds a BA (Hons) and LLB (Wits) and also obtained an HDip Company Law (Wits) and HDip Tax Law (Wits).
Stephen Kennedy- Good Associate Stephen Kennedy-Good joined the Cape Town office of Deneys Reitz as a candidate attorney and was appointed as an associate in the commercial department in 2007. Stephen’s areas of practice include company law, mergers and acquisitions, preference share funding and general transactional work. Stephen holds an LLB (cum laude) from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and a Master of Laws in commercial law from UCT. He moved to the firm’s Sandton office at the beginning of this year.
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hareholders may invest significant funds into business ventures, be it private companies or public companies, even those listed on the JSE. But the day-to-day running of the company is the responsibility of the directors, not the shareholders, and there is a need to shelter investors from reckless behaviour that has led to the collapse of companies such as Enron and LeisureNet. The new Companies Act of 2008 (new Act) and the third King Report (King III) seek to curb these failures.
March 2010 | riskSA Magazine