NEWSFLASH FOR WEEK 3 (20 – 23) September 2021

FINANCE

Bill seeks to force firms to disclose executive pay

The government’s push to compel companies to disclose the wage differentials between executives and workers is a step closer to becoming law after the cabinet approved the publication of the Companies Amendment Bill for public comment.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Potential grounds for revocation of a patent citing AI as an inventor

The South African patent office (“patent office”) recently made global news for becoming the first patent office in the world to have granted a patent for an invention that was created by artificial intelligence (“AI”). The patent (with ZA patent no. 2021/03242) was granted from a national phase application originating from international application number PCT/IB2019/057809 filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The PCT is an international patent law treaty, which provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in any one of its contracting states.

LABOUR

Mandatory vaccine policy: How to introduce one to the workplace

Vaccine hesitancy is a very real challenge for governments around the world, and in South Africa we are certainly not immune to this trend: only just over 10% of the population has had the jab, despite the fact that anyone over the age of 18 can be vaccinated if they so choose.

While getting vaccinated is not (yet) a legal requirement, employers can now implement a mandatory vaccination policy in the workplace under specific circumstances and subject to certain constitutional checks and balances. This follows the publication of the amended Consolidation Direction on Occupational Health and Safety Measures in Certain Workplaces on 11 June 2021.

POPIA

Justice dept cyber attack spills over to Info Regulator

A cyber attack on the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development’s (DOJ&CD’s) IT systems has spilled over to the office of the Information Regulator (IR), disrupting the watchdog’s IT systems.