Author Archives: EAI Law

When the Family Trust Owns the Business Why South Africa’s proposed trust reforms matter to business owners By Yolandi Erasmus  |  Managing Director  |  Y. Erasmus & Associates Inc. For many South African entrepreneurs, a family trust sits quietly in the background of the business. It may own shares in the operating company, hold property..

Most business owners don’t wake up thinking: “I need a legal, risk, governance and compliance review.” They think: Can someone review this contract before I sign it? How do I protect my brand? What do I need before bringing in an investor? Are we ready to apply for finance? Could I sell this business if..

Businesses are investing heavily in digital transformation. New systems are implemented, customer journeys move online, data is analysed to support decision-making, artificial intelligence is becoming part of everyday operations, and contracts are increasingly concluded electronically. Yet one question is often receives far less attention: Who is governing it? Digital transformation is frequently viewed as a..

This month’s article is slightly different. Many business owners think estate planning begins with a will and ends with a trust. In reality, some of the most important conversations arise long before either document is signed. The real question is not whether an estate plan exists. The real question is whether the family’s vision, wealth,..

In April, we shared a shift we are seeing across businesses: legal is no longer being treated as a cost centre, but as part of the infrastructure that allows a business to scale with consistency and control. That conversation was about how businesses should think about legal. May is where that thinking becomes practical. Because..

For years, legal has sat in most businesses as a necessary cost, important, but largely reactive, difficult to budget, and only truly visible when something goes wrong. A contract dispute, a regulatory issue, or a deal that slows down because something wasn’t structured correctly. By the time legal becomes urgent, the business is already exposed…

Across South Africa, capital is being deployed into retail models, agricultural production networks, logistics platforms and SME ecosystems. Most of these growth strategies do not depend on land or commercial buildings. They depend on stock, equipment, receivables, vehicles, modular infrastructure and production cycles. Yet our legal and credit architecture was historically designed around immovable property…