ENERGY CRISIS

• The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has made several interventions intended to:
  • ease electricity supply constraints
  • facilitate appropriate, energy-saving responses by energy suppliers and users, and
  • reduce energy costs.
• The interventions comprise:
  • a block exemption from Competition Act requirements for certain energy and energy-related products and service suppliers
  • a block exemption from Competition Act requirements for the users of alternative/back-up energy supply equipment, and
  • the withdrawal of compulsory specifications for single-capped fluorescent and incandescent lamps, nevertheless introducing:
    • compulsory safety requirement specifications for general service lamps, and
    • related compulsory energy efficiency and functional performance requirement specifications.

 

CAPTIVE LION INDUSTRY EXIT PROGRAMME

• The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has gazetted a notice allowing captive lion industry breeders until 20 July 2023 to register with government’s voluntary exit programme. This has confirmed an announcement made in Minister Barbara Creecy’s 2023/23 budget vote speech.
• According to an earlier notice on the programme, registering to participate ‘does not constitute any obligation to proceed’ with exiting the industry.

 

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

• The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has extended to 7 June 2023 the deadline for input on a discussion document gazetted in March as the next step of its inquiry into ‘dynamic and opportunistic spectrum management’.
• In a Government Gazette notice amending the 2015 Radio Frequency Spectrum Regulations, ICASA has opened the lower 6GHz spectrum band to Wi-Fi services. According to a media statement on the regulatory amendment entailed:
  • it exempts 6GHz from radio frequency spectrum licensing requirements, and
  • will give the remote local area network and Wi-Fi service uptake ‘a much-needed boost’.
• ICASA has also gazetted a notice announcing the commencement of the next phase of a process intended to:
  • determine the most efficient cost of providing wholesale voice call termination services, and
  • close gaps in pro-competitive remedies imposed on licensees in terms of the 2014 call termination regulations.

 

MONEY LAUNDERING AND TERRORISM FINANCING

• The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has gazetted amendments to regulations under the Companies Act, 2008, aligning them with requirements in the General Laws (Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing) Amendment Act, 2022. They came into effect on 24 May 2023.

 

COMPETITION ACT NEW REGULATIONS

• The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has also gazetted regulations informed by Competition Tribunal rules relating to:
  • market inquiry appeals, and
  • Competition Commission divestiture recommendations.
• The new regulations came into effect on 24 May 2023.

 

LEGAL PRACTICE ACT

• More sections of the Legal Practice Act, 2014, came into force on 26 May 2023, by presidential proclamation in the Government Gazette. They focus on disciplinary proceedings and related appeals.

 

AUDITORS

• The Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors has issued a Government Gazette notice announcing the publication of a revised code of professional conduct for registered auditors.

 

Prepared by Pam Saxby