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ECONOMIC REVIEW

Grexit: today the Greeks will vote on the acceptance or not of austerity measures. Some commentators say that this is a lesson in democracy: negotiators should speak for those who they represent. These decry the perception that ordinary people do not understand economics. One of these apologists, Stiglitz points out, rightly or wrongly, that almost none of the huge sums lent to Greece has actually gone to that country. These sums went to pay private sector creditors such as German and French banks. The Greeks, says he, are merely paying to preserve the banking systems of other European countries.
As regards the public and economics, the above statement that the public is more informed that one might think, is possibly borne out by the runaway success achieved by Piketty in his book on economics.
Whichever way the vote goes, one can safely predict that a mess will result.

One of the predictors of our economic performance is sales of new cars. Our new vehicle sales fell by 4.8%, year on year, last month. In line with this are the results from the FNB/BER consumer confidence survey, showing that our consumer confidence has nosedived to a 14.5 year low in the 2nd quarter of this year to -15. This is the largest drop since 2008.
A further additional depressing statistic is a report by SA Stats to the effect that we have lost 44,000 white-collar jobs since the beginning of this year.

BUSINESS REVIEW

The newest SAA chief executive has said that SAA would be profitable in 3 years, barring accidents.

Leadership fit? Several trends emerged this week on leadership. One draws from Victor Frankel

PROPERTY REVIEW

Again: listed property stocks outperformed the JSC all share index in the 1st half of this year. Again the predictions are that this will not last.

Sapoa reports that at the end of March our national office vacancy rate was 11.2% up from 11.1% the quarter before. This is still lower than the global average of 12.7% but higher than the European average of 9.5%. In the Americas, the average vacancy rate is 15.1%. Secondary offices continue to underperform and, during the past quarter, B-and C-grade officers saw vacancy rates increased by 80 and 30 basis points respectively.

Spluma: a challenge for conveyancers dealing with new developments will be the teething problems when being forced to deal with this new act

PRACTICE REVIEW

CASES

Common mistake

It is not often that one sees a case in which both the seller and the purchaser of property are mistaken as to the item sold. In this case it involved a boat house which was not on the land sold. The court declared the contract invalid.
Brownstein [2015] ZAGPJHC 122

Mistake in tender procedure

In this case the PWD made a mistake in regard to the entity with whom it sought it was contracting. This, in legal terms, is termed a justus error and the contract was not upheld.
African Tnformation Technology SCA case 134/14

Encroachment

Is it possible for someone, who encroaches on another

QUOTABLES

WEIRD & WONDERFUL

Going, going, going?

LIGHTEN UP

A mother of three brings a paternity suit against a well-known cricketer.