Two chrome companies went to war over a single shaft. The shaft was allowed to stand while the neighbour who held the mining right to that ground was sent packing. Read the papers and the matter looks like a dispute about trespass and boundaries. It is not. The court decided it on another ground entirely, but the misunderstanding is what made the claim look plausible in the first place. The boundary was never the real question, and it is an easy mistake to make, one quietly c

During a break in court proceedings a client and his senior counsel stand in the corridor, waiting for the matter to be called. Passing the time, the client asks the silk how many years of experience he has in court. The silk smiles faintly. “In court? Five years. In the corridor, twenty-five.” The joke survives because it is true. In the Gauteng Division of the High Court about eighty five per cent of civil trials settle on the morning of the hearing, most of them in that co

In six weeks in June and July 2026, three South African courts decided three disputes that had the same shape. Each began as a deal between people who knew and trusted each other, and each ended as a fight between the strangers they had become. One was fought by a new owner who had never met the man on the other side. One was fought against a trusted manager who had turned into a competitor. One was fought between two companies that had spent five years quietly rewriting the

A businessman can hold a signed contract that gives him the right to buy a company, or to renew the lease his whole business stands on, and then discover that in law he holds nothing at all. He has not been cheated. No one has torn up his document. Regardless of the paper it was written on, the right simply never existed, and it never existed because of a distinction dealmakers often do not notice until the day they try to rely on it. That is the distinction between an option

A buyer can tell you, in writing and even under oath, that it fully intends to go ahead with a deal, and can still be in the wrong in law for the way it walks away from it. That sounds impossible, but it is not. It is one of the most costly misunderstandings in the business of contract law, and it does the most damage when the company on the other side of the table is fighting for its life. We acted for the seller in a large mining transaction that turned on exactly this prob

For more than three years, a provincial development agency did not think it owned any part of a chrome mining right. Then a sale it was about to lose sent its lawyers into the fine print, and they found a clause. On the strength of that clause the agency claimed 40 per cent of the mining right itself: a right it had never applied for, never qualified to hold, and never paid for. It took the claim to the High Court, lost, and pressed on to the Supreme Court of Appeal. Three of

The fastest way to keep a dying mine alive is to give it away. Let someone else bring the machines, dig the ore, sell it and ship it, and take a royalty on every tonne that leaves the gate. The cash arrives in weeks and the operation looks alive, but the value leaves the country one truckload at a time. South African law says the same thing in two places, in the private contracts that ration access to our ports and in the statute that governs every mining right in the country

A foreign investor spends four months negotiating a South African acquisition, signs a memorandum of understanding on the final afternoon, and flies home to tell the board the deal is secured. He is wrong twice over. In the country he has just left, that document may oblige the other side to almost nothing. In the country he comes from, a similar document may bind him far more tightly than he ever intended. One page, two legal systems, two opposite meanings, and a great deal

Two senior people shake hands across a boardroom table. One agrees to step aside, the other agrees to make the move worth his while, and nobody writes any of it down, because writing it down would have felt like distrust between people who had built something together. Years later a court is asked to decide what was actually said in that room. A great deal of money turns on the answer. What was agreed has two accounts, and they do not align. Which one will the court believe,

You have invested months and substantial legal fees in a serious commercial matter. Your legal team has gathered the evidence carefully. The case logic is sound. The hearing is professional. Your lawyers perform well. When judgment arrives, the outcome often turns on factors you never thought would influence the judge. The work you did not see carries the day, or ruins the case. This is the fifth and final article in Wessel’s rules of practice series. The rule it examines is

There comes a moment in any long, serious matter when the opposing advocate knows your client better than your own team does. He has spent two years watching the witness from across the room. He is paid to find what is wrong with the case. Your team, by contrast, has been right. The strategy holds. The client is steady. Familiar relationships are the unguarded ones. When something gives, your team is rarely looking. This is the fourth in Wessel’s series on the rules of practi

The most consequential conversation in any serious legal matter is usually the first one. The client tells his story. The lawyer listens. The matter is named. What is less often noticed is that the naming is also a choice: the frame chosen determines what must be proved, what must be proved determines what evidence may be heard, and what evidence may be heard determines the question the court can answer. In a profession organised around specialisation, the system does not req

Most lawyers have a ready answer for every difficult result. The facts were against them. The judge was unreceptive. The client made it impossible. The other side had resources and resolve that no one could have predicted. The explanations are usually true, and that is the problem. This is the second article in Wessel’s rules of practice series. The rule it examines is one every serious professional believes he already applies, but most do not. In a lengthy matter that ended

South African mining continues to attract serious foreign capital, including from China, because the opportunity is real. But the financial case is only one part of the investment. A mine that appears attractive on paper can be defeated by licensing risk, labour instability, community conflict, environmental delay, exchange-control mistakes, regulatory intervention or litigation visible only to those who know where to look. In this article, attorney Wessel Badenhorst draws on

There is a discipline in advocacy that has nothing to do with courtroom drama and everything to do with the art of persuasion. It is the discipline of knowing which facts carry the argument, which ones support it quietly, and which ones, however true and however compelling to the client, should never play at all. Picasso called it the elimination of the unnecessary. In a courtroom, it is the difference between a case that persuades and a record that merely overwhelms. Wessel

In this article, Wessel sets out the first of the firm’s rules of practice: assumptions are the silent assassin of good legal strategy. Drawing on nearly three decades in disputes work, he explains why lawyers and clients must resist the urge to move too quickly to conclusions, and why the best outcomes usually begin with disciplined fact finding, structured digital systems, and the judgement to understand what the real problem is before trying to solve it. My first rule of p

In this article, Wessel argues that the present geopolitical contest for minerals and industrial capacity leaves South Africa with very little time for policy slogans and very little room for regulatory drift. At a moment when global capital is moving selectively and critical minerals are attracting sharper strategic attention, he contends that South Africa’s best remaining opportunity is to act decisively, streamline approvals, reduce regulatory friction, and make the countr

In this article, Wessel draws on his experience in both health and safety and labour law to consider a practical question that arises after every serious mining incident: should the employer move straight to dismissal, or first complete a proper investigation? He argues for a disciplined middle course, one that uses precautionary suspension where necessary, preserves the integrity of the investigation, and ensures that any disciplinary outcome is based on properly tested fact

In this keynote address, delivered on 31 January 2024 at Guildhall in London for the South African Chamber of Commerce Annual Awards Gala Dinner, Wessel draws on his experience working closely with the Chamber during his time as Office Managing Partner of Hogan Lovells Johannesburg to reflect on South Africa’s business climate at a pivotal moment. Speaking against the backdrop of an election year, labour unrest, pressure in the mining sector, and the wider legacy of state cap