The impact of constitutional property law on insolvency law in South Africa

It is common for insolvency legislation to interfere with the property rights of debtors, creditors and third parties in pursuit of its purpose to provide an orderly and fair resolution to insolvency‐related problems. However, the South African property clause, Section 25 of the Constitution, prohibits arbitrary interferences with vested property interests. In light of this, this article focuses on the application of Section 25 to insolvency law in South Africa. The question is whether interferences with property rights in terms of insolvency legislation qualify as deprivations of property for constitutional purposes and, if so, whether they comply with the relevant validity requirements. This article investigates this question by explaining the interaction between insolvency law and constitutional law in general, followed by a closer look at the application and operation of the property clause in particular. Thereafter, three examples from case law are discussed to illustrate the role of constitutional property law in evaluating the effects of insolvency legislation in South Africa. The conclusion is drawn that, as long as the relevant requirements are met, the norms underlying the property clause do not hinder the development and implementation of legitimate and necessary insolvency procedures that could impact on vested property rights.     

Social identity in MNCs based on language and nationality

The existence of multiple languages in a multinational corporation (MNC) causes tensions in the firm both by causing problems in communicating and by creating social groups. MNCs that adopt a common corporate language that is not their home language will find a problem of competing languages. Nationality is another cultural feature that leads to perceived biases that favor home‐country nationals. We explore both of these influences using social identity theory. Our research was conducted in a Spanish MNC that has subsidiaries in 42 countries and has adopted English as its corporate language. We used a mixed‐method approach with a mailed survey of 216 managers across 42 subsidiaries in the MNC and personal interviews of headquarters executives. We found that Spanish speakers enjoyed advantages in terms of access to resources for themselves and their subsidiaries, relative to non‐Spanish speakers. This access was greater when the Spanish speakers were Spanish nationals and was moderated by geographic proximity of the subsidiary to the headquarters and age of the subsidiary.