The unprecedented Covid-19 lockdown response by governments around the world triggered a bevy of business interruption insurance claims. One of the key issues considered by the courts in adjudicating refuted claims was the question of causation. The question in its simplest form was this: did the virus or the government response cause the losses suffered by the insured? This paper analyzes the effect causation played in the adjudication of these business interruption insurance cases in South Africa, as well as the test case in the United Kingdom. Given the novelty of the issue, this paper narrows down on the causative link between the virus, the government response and the insurance claim, at the time of writing the paper, a topic not thoroughly focused on by other academics. This paper analyzes the case law to see how the courts dealt with the issue, but also proposes an alternative causation theory to consider and what the result of the courts' decision could have been had they followed that consideration. The main finding is that despite a reasonable alternative consideration of causations effect on the insurance claim, the courts' made the more appropriate decision, especially taking into account the overarching considerations of fairness. The result shows the major effect causation plays in business interruption insurance cases and the depth of the causative analysis goes much deeper than anticipated, however given the unanimous judgments from South Africa and the UK, the question of causation in Covid-19 business interruption claims seems to now be largely settled law.

Mobile money services refer to service where a mobile phone is used to provide banking services with little or no involvement of traditional banks. This service has become a powerful tool for bringing unbanked and underbanked people into the formal financial sector. The roll out and success of the service in question has not been smooth in some countries due to stringent financial regulations. The purpose of this study was to conduct a comparative legal analysis of how financial regulations have enhanced or hindered mobile money services adoption in South Africa and Zimbabwe and the extent to which this has helped to increase financial inclusion. Through a comparative analysis of primary and secondary sources of law, this study observed that South Africa and Zimbabwe have contrasting mobile money services fortunes which can be attributed to the regulatory approaches adopted by the two countries towards the mobile money services. South African adopted a no regulation approach requiring any entity that engages in mobile money services to do so within the confines of existing financial regulations. As a result of this, mobile money services have made little to no contribution to the fight against financial exclusion in South Africa. On the other hand, this research found that Zimbabwe has a thriving mobile money service sector. This can be attributed to the test and learn regulatory approach adopted by the country's regulators. At the time of writing this thesis, MTN and Vodacom in South Africa are relaunching their mobile money services after discontinuing the services 5 years ago. Rigid financial regulations were fingered as one of the causes of failure of the first attempt. The author hopes in highlighting the regulatory shortfalls of the approach adopted by South Africa in regulating mobile money services, this thesis will help policy makers, regulators and industry players to develop robust and inclusive mobile money regulatory eco-systems which promote financial inclusion as is the case with Zimbabwe.

Over the years, artists who were once the biggest selling artists in the South African music industry have been witnessed to have no financial or other resources upon their death; or when they left the record labels they were signed to, their careers faded and they had nothing to their name. There have been numerous allegations from artists about the treatment they have received from their record labels, particularly with regard to being inadequately compensated for their work and record labels not honouring the agreements they had with them. This dissertation examines how copyright law, as applied to the music industry, solves or tries to solve the problem of artists who die or live as paupers, after having been among the biggest selling artists in the country. It evaluates whether copyright law provides any mechanism to deal with the alleged exploitation that has existed for a very long time in the music industry. Understanding that the purpose of copyright protection is to incentivise authors and motivate them to create more works, the dissertation evaluates whether copyright law has any specific provisions to safeguard this purpose. The dissertation further considers the principles of contract law as a tool used to create binding agreements between artists and record labels. The dissertation argues that the contracts that artists and record labels enter into are unfair, which is as a result, amongst other things, of the imbalance of the negotiating power of the two parties.

The topics dealt with in this paper are in the context of and applicable to early-stage technology companies (“startups”). This paper discusses what a startup is and the relevance of startups in South Africa. It will further consider the challenges faced by startups in South Africa, particularly the lack of access to funding and market opportunity. It will further discuss the opportunities that are available for startups offshore, specifically with regard to funding, market growth and opportunity. Following on from this, it will delve into the different international structures available to startups, which include the loop structure and the mirror structure. The paper will go on to discuss the conventional loop structure, which entails an offshore holding company with South African shareholders, which owns a South African entity – as well as the current legislation and restrictions in place which regulate the loop structure, also taking into account market opinion and the recent legislative development of the loop structure. Thereafter and forming the body of the paper, it will discuss the interplay between transfer pricing, tax residency and intellectual property in the context of setting up a mirror structure. These elements considered together deal with the factors which need to be taken into account by a startup when immigrating the headquarters of a company to an offshore jurisdiction in a tax efficient manner, and importantly dealing with the evolution of intellectual property (being the core asset of value relevant to an early-stage technology company) in the offshore jurisdiction. The elements to be considered in this regard include the establishment of the place of effective management of a company, what a controlled foreign company is, understanding foreign business establishment, the pre-requisites to dealing with intellectual property from a transfer pricing perspective and how these factors can be re-engineered to ensure that newly developed intellectual property is created offshore. Finally, this paper will consider the South African Venture Capital Association's perspective on the current regulations regarding the loop structure, and why the mirror structure is considered to be a safer alternative for technology start-ups who are looking to move offshore.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Thesis (LL. M.)--McGill University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. i-xix).

Wong Wai Hung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-103). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / LIST OF TABLES --- p.iii / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.v / ABSTRACT --- p.vii / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Goals and Significance --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Thesis Organization --- p.2 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- Review on Air Cargo Industry --- p.3 / Chapter 2.1 --- The Position of Air Cargo Logistics --- p.3 / Chapter 2.2 --- General Air Cargo Practice --- p.3 / Chapter 2.3 --- Hong Kong Air Cargo Practice - An Example --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Air Cargo Cost Analysis --- p.12 / Chapter 3.1 --- Shipping Costs --- p.12 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- International Shipping Costs --- p.12 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Local Shipping Costs --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2 --- Shipment Categorization --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Illustrative Examples - Hong Kong --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3 --- Analysis of shipping cost --- p.27 / Chapter 3.4. --- Freight Forwarders' means for freight forwarders' success --- p.29 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Consolidation --- p.31 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Integration --- p.42 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Cooperation among freight forwarders to combine the cargos --- p.44 / Chapter 3.5 --- Summary --- p.44 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- A Mixed 0-1 LP Model of Air Cargo Logistics integration & consolidation --- p.47 / Chapter 4.1 --- Statement of the Problem --- p.47 / Chapter 4.2 --- Literature Review --- p.49 / Chapter 4.3 --- Objective Function --- p.51 / Chapter 4.4 --- Logical Constraints --- p.52 / Chapter 4.5 --- Resources Constraints --- p.54 / Chapter 4.6 --- The Model --- p.55 / Chapter 4.7 --- Properties of the Model --- p.56 / Chapter Chapter 5. --- Solution Process --- p.58 / Chapter 5.1 --- Tabu Search --- p.59 / Chapter 5.2 --- Tabu Search Algorithm --- p.62 / Chapter 5.3 --- Illustrative Example --- p.64 / Chapter 5.4 --- Implementation and Results --- p.70 / Chapter Chapter 6. --- Extensions --- p.73 / Chapter 6.1 --- Different approaches as the initial solution --- p.73 / Chapter 6.2 --- Risk or Reliability Limit --- p.75 / Chapter 6.3 --- Consolidation with inventory penalty --- p.78 / Chapter 6.4 --- Two Phase Method --- p.79 / Chapter Chapter 7. --- Sensitivity Analysis --- p.81 / Chapter 7.1 --- Delivery time --- p.81 / Chapter 7.2 --- Charging price and cost --- p.85 / Chapter 7.3 --- Resources allocations --- p.92 / Chapter 7.4 --- A series of good solutions --- p.95 / Chapter Chapter 8. --- Conclusion --- p.98 / Chapter 8.1 --- Future Work --- p.98 / Chapter 8.2 --- Future Research --- p.100 / LIST OF REFERENCES --- p.102 / Appendix --- p.104 / Simulation results --- p.104 / Pseudo code --- p.107 / Program Coding --- p.110

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Industrial & Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007. / Dr. Dirk Gunther, Committee Member ; Dr. Hayriye Ayhan, Committee Member ; Dr. Ellis L. Johnson, Committee Chair ; Dr. Pinar Keskinocak, Committee Co-Chair ; Dr. Julie Swann, Committee Member

Canada and the United States have the largest, bilateral trade relationship of any two nations. Fittingly, they also exchange the largest volume of international air travellers of any pair of countries. The terms under which Canada-United States air transportation are provided are set forth in the Canada-United States Bilateral Air Services Agreement. The current Agreement was founded upon the consumer demands and industry operating practices that prevailed in 1966. Although the Agreement was substantially modified in 1974, the essence of the regime has been rendered obsolete by the developments of transborder airline market characteristics. Canada and the United States have recognised that a new bilateral air services agreement is a necessity. Three general strategies have been proposed as the bases for a new regime: the specified rights option, the open border option, and the cabotage rights option. Specified rights is the genre of the current regime: all routes having entry strictly controlled. The open border option would entail complete freedom for either country’s carriers to contest all transborder routes. Cabotage rights allow carriers to contest any market within or between the two countries. A new agreement has yet to be achieved. The delay in finding an acceptable scheme has been the difficulty in meeting both major objectives for the new policy: efficiency and equity. This report examines the alternative schemes for a new Canada-United States air services regime. The structure-conduct-performance paradigm of industrial analysis is utilised to evaluate the nature of the distribution of benefits that would arise following the adoption of the various alternatives. The report concludes that the adoption of a phased-in, open border regime would best meet the twin objectives of efficiency enhancement and equity of opportunity.

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