Deal teams doing M&A in South Africa are generally well prepared for Competition Commission notification. It is the regulator everyone expects, the one every transaction lawyer raises early, and the one most deal timelines are built around. The regulators that catch teams out are the sector-specific ones – present in a specific transaction, easy to […]
The Regulator You Forgot About Is the One That Stops the Deal Read More »
Founders preparing for an exit tend to focus their attention on the parts of the business that feel substantive: revenue quality, customer concentration, the strength of the team. Corporate housekeeping – board minutes, shareholder resolutions, the share register – gets treated as administrative residue, the kind of thing that can be tidied up later if
The Paperwork Problem that becomes a Valuation Problem Read More »
Private equity and venture capital transactions in South Africa move through a predictable sequence: investment thesis, preliminary commercial assessment, indicative terms, and then due diligence. It is in due diligence that deals most often stall, reprice, or collapse – and the findings that cause this are, with notable regularity, things that were knowable before the
The Legal Due Diligence Findings That Derail South African PE and VC Deals Most Often Read More »
Most South African business owners who have been through a failed or heavily discounted sale process can point to the moment things went wrong. It is almost never the commercial terms. It is the due diligence findings that nobody anticipated – and that nobody had fixed, because no one had looked. Here are the five
In South Africa’s energy market, the most dangerous phase of a project isn’t the negotiation. It’s the waiting. Waiting for environmental authorisation. Waiting for municipal council approval. Waiting for NERSA. Waiting for the network operator to confirm a connection date. Waiting for a government counterparty to respond to correspondence sent three months ago. Projects that
The Consent Bottleneck: How SA Energy Projects Keep Moving When Regulators Don’t Read More »
There are two moments in an investor’s calendar when legal can either accelerate everything or derail it completely: when you’re raising a fund and when you’re exiting a position. These are the highest-stakes, most time-sensitive transactions in the cycle – and they’re also when legal bottlenecks tend to appear without warning. The problem isn’t that
Most South African energy deals start with urgency and alignment. Then somewhere between month four and month six, the same disputes surface: “That wasn’t our understanding of how curtailment would be treated.” “Your invoice doesn’t reconcile to our metering data.” “We didn’t agree that network losses would be allocated this way.” “We thought approvals were
The Energy Deal Truth Sheet: One Page That Prevents Six Months of Arguments Read More »
When teams say “Legal is slow,” it’s rarely because lawyers don’t know what they’re doing. It’s because contract work is high-volume and high-friction: documents arrive through long email chains and get separated from context and attachments, templates are inconsistent and vary by team, region or “who last sent the document”, schedules are incomplete and annexures
The “Legal Front Door”: Fix Contract Turnaround in 30 Days with Secure AI Read More »
Great companies get discounted – or delayed- because ownership is unclear. If your cap table is a patchwork of SAFEs, convertibles, side letters, and undocumented promises, buyers assume pain and price for it. A cap table detox is the cheapest way to protect value before an LOI. 1) Collect every instrument—no exceptionsPull term sheets, signed
Cap Table Detox: The 10 Moves That Save Your Deal Before Diligence Starts Read More »
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Ask our AI a question about this topic, and one of our specialist lawyers will review the response and email you within 24 hours, free of charge.
KAI is free for Caveat friends and clients. To use KAI, complete the form below and look out for the AI’s answer, reviewed by a specialist lawyer, in your inbox. For the most accurate and helpful response, be as specific and detailed as possible. Provide all relevant facts and clearly state what you’d like answered.
Disclaimer: Kai is provided by Caveat in a bona fide attempt to make legal services more accessible to you. Caveat will not be liable for any damage, loss or expense arising from the use of this offering.
Feedback Welcome: Your experience matters to us. Please share feedback on this offering at info@caveatlegal.com to help us improve its efficacy.
