Focused, strategic and outcomes-driven.

We represent clients in mediations, arbitrations and negotiated dispute-resolution processes across a range of commercial, contractual, shareholder, insolvency and business rescue disputes.

Our approach to alternative dispute resolution is practical and strategic. We assess the legal merits, commercial pressure points and procedural options at an early stage, then guide clients through the most effective path to resolution. Where a negotiated outcome is achievable, we work to secure it without unnecessary escalation. Where a dispute requires formal determination, we prepare and present the case with the same discipline and intensity expected in court proceedings.

Our arbitration work includes pre-arbitration strategy, drafting and analysis of arbitration agreements, pleadings, evidence, interlocutory applications, hearings, settlement negotiations, arbitral awards, enforcement and review-related issues. In mediation, we assist clients to prepare a clear negotiating position, identify settlement parameters and protect their legal and commercial interests throughout the process.

We aim to resolve disputes efficiently, but never at the expense of leverage, credibility or enforceability.

We act for lenders and for borrowers across the life cycle of a facility — from documentation through to default and enforcement.

Our work includes facility agreements and related finance documentation (bilateral, syndicated, leveraged and LMA-based), advising on and perfecting security including mortgage bonds, notarial bonds, cessions, pledges and suretyships, and events of default, breach, acceleration and enforcement.

We also advise on the restructuring, refinancing and workout of distressed facilities, standstill and forbearance arrangements, and ranking, subordination and competing security in insolvent estates. Enforcement strategy is usually decided by choices made at the drafting stage — we advise on both ends of that sequence, and conduct the litigation that follows.

We advise and represent companies, directors, creditors, investors, business rescue practitioners and affected persons in business rescue and financial restructuring matters.

Financial distress requires more than technical compliance. It requires a clear assessment of risk, value, timing, leverage and available remedies. We assist clients in navigating business rescue proceedings, restructuring negotiations, creditor disputes, post-commencement finance, business rescue plans, creditors’ meetings, voting disputes, litigation involving business rescue practitioners, and the interface between rescue and liquidation.

We act for stakeholders seeking to preserve value, recover debt, challenge irregular conduct, enforce rights or implement a viable restructuring. Our work includes advising boards before commencement of business rescue, preparing and evaluating rescue plans, representing creditors in disputed claims and voting-rights issues, and advising on distressed transactions and settlement structures.

Where rescue is no longer viable, we assist clients in moving decisively towards liquidation, recovery proceedings or other enforcement mechanisms.

We advise on the drafting, review, negotiation and enforcement of commercial agreements.

Our commercial practice is built around clarity, risk allocation and enforceability. We assist clients with contracts that regulate the core of their business relationships, including sale agreements, service agreements, supply agreements, shareholder and investor arrangements, loan and security documents, leases, acknowledgments of debt, settlement agreements, non-disclosure agreements, restraints, mandates and bespoke commercial instruments.

We do not treat contracts as templates. We identify the commercial purpose of the transaction, the risks that may arise if the relationship deteriorates, and the mechanisms needed to protect the client if enforcement becomes necessary. Our drafting is designed to reduce ambiguity, preserve leverage and avoid disputes where possible.

We also advise on contractual interpretation, breach, cancellation, remedies, liability exposure, governance issues, director and shareholder rights, and pre-litigation strategy where commercial relationships have broken down.

We advise investors, founders and corporates on transactions and on the structures that carry them.

Our work includes mergers, acquisitions, disposals and corporate reorganisations; private equity and venture capital investments, including subscription agreements, shareholders’ agreements and investor protections; fund formation and structuring in South Africa and offshore; and listings and equity capital markets work, including advice on the JSE Listings Requirements.

Our team includes a practitioner who spent over nine years as a partner and investment committee member of a private equity firm, responsible for the legal, regulatory, compliance and structuring aspects of investments in South Africa, elsewhere in Africa and offshore.

We deliver efficient recovery solutions tailored to institutional and private clients — at volume where required, and with escalation where it is warranted.

Our work includes pre-litigation recovery strategies and negotiations; summonses, default judgments and writs of execution; securing and realising security interests including mortgage and notarial bonds; enforcing judgments; and liquidation or sequestration against recalcitrant debtors.

Because we are insolvency practitioners as well as litigators, we know when recovery stops being a collections exercise and becomes a solvency question — and we advise clients to change course accordingly rather than fund a dead process.

We advise employers on the employment consequences of their commercial decisions — including in distressed and restructuring contexts, where those consequences are often the hardest part of the plan.

Workforce decisions carry legal, financial and reputational risk, and they are frequently taken under time pressure. We help employers structure those decisions properly the first time: the correct process, the correct consultation, the correct paper trail.

Our work includes employment contracts, restraints of trade, workplace policies and disciplinary codes; dismissals, retrenchments and workforce restructuring, including in business rescue and liquidation; chairing disciplinary enquiries; CCMA and bargaining council disputes; executive exits and settlement agreements; and the employment aspects of transfers of a business as a going concern.

We advise and represent clients in sequestrations, rehabilitations, liquidations, insolvency enquiries, recovery proceedings, cross-border insolvency issues and personal liability claims.

Our insolvency practice covers both corporate and personal insolvency. We act for creditors, debtors, directors, shareholders, liquidators, trustees, business rescue stakeholders and interested parties in matters involving financial collapse, asset recovery, creditor disputes and alleged misconduct.

Our work includes applications for liquidation and sequestration, opposition to liquidation and sequestration proceedings, voluntary surrender, rehabilitation, claims against insolvent estates, impeachable transactions, dispositions without value, voidable preferences, collusive dealings, insolvency enquiries, subpoenas, recovery of assets, disputes with liquidators and trustees, and litigation arising from insolvent estates.

We also advise on director and officer exposure, including personal liability claims, reckless trading allegations, breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of assets and related recovery proceedings. Where insolvency has a foreign or multi-jurisdictional element, we assist with recognition, enforcement, recovery strategy and coordination within South Africa and across its borders.

Our focus is to secure recoveries, protect rights and impose procedural discipline in matters where delay and uncertainty can quickly erode value.

We represent clients in complex commercial, civil, insolvency and business rescue litigation.

Litigation is not only about court process. It is about strategy, timing, evidence, leverage and commercial outcome. We advise clients from the earliest stage of a dispute, assessing the merits, risks, urgency, available remedies, settlement prospects and likely enforcement path.

Our litigation work includes urgent applications, interdicts, contractual disputes, shareholder and director disputes, debt recovery, enforcement proceedings, damages claims, insolvency-related litigation, business rescue disputes, review applications, declaratory relief, oppression and governance disputes, and proceedings involving fraud, misrepresentation or breach of fiduciary duty.

We prepare matters with a clear theory of the case and a strong evidentiary foundation. Where urgent intervention is required, we act quickly. Where a matter requires sustained litigation, we manage the process with discipline, precision and a focus on the client’s broader commercial objectives.

Our role is to give clients clear advice, protect their position and pursue outcomes that are legally sound and commercially meaningful.

We advise on the commercial and development aspects of property — including where property forms part of a lender’s security or of an insolvent estate.

Our work includes acquisitions, disposals and developments of commercial, industrial and retail property; joint ventures and development management arrangements; commercial leasing, including offers to lease and agreements of lease; and heads of agreement for mixed-use developments.

Our experience includes senior property development roles in Johannesburg and London — a perspective that is useful on both sides of a distressed property asset: the realisation of mortgaged property, the treatment of leases in rescue and liquidation, and the value preserved or lost in the sequence of steps taken.

We advise accountable institutions and regulated businesses on their compliance obligations, and on the regulatory position of the counterparties they deal with.

Our work includes obligations under the Financial Intelligence Centre Act — risk management and compliance programmes, customer due diligence, beneficial ownership and reporting — financial services regulation and licensing, and the anti-money laundering and know-your-client aspects of lending, investment and corporate transactions.

Regulatory exposure rarely arrives on its own. It surfaces in a lending decision, an investment, an onboarding failure, a distressed counterparty or an investigation — usually the point at which commercial and reputational risk converge.

We advise and represent clients in white-collar criminal defence, internal investigations and matters involving fraud, corruption, theft, money laundering, procurement irregularities, cyber-enabled financial crime and related civil or regulatory exposure.

White-collar matters often carry immediate reputational, financial and criminal consequences. We assist individuals, companies, directors, officers and stakeholders in responding to allegations, preserving privilege, managing documents and evidence, engaging with investigators, preparing defence strategy and assessing parallel civil, employment, regulatory and commercial risks.

Our work includes criminal defence, internal investigations, forensic review support, responses to subpoenas and information requests, search-and-seizure issues, restraint and asset-preservation matters, complaints to law-enforcement agencies, private-sector fraud investigations, and civil recovery proceedings arising from unlawful conduct.

We approach white-collar matters with discretion, urgency and strategic control. The objective is to protect the client’s rights, contain legal and reputational risk, and ensure that any response is careful, defensible and aligned with the wider commercial context.