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The purpose of this paper is to explore a possible framework for extinction accounting which builds on but also extends significantly the existing GRI guidelines relating to species identified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List as under threat of extinction.

The paper analyses disclosures relating to rhinoceros conservation and protection produced by top South African-listed companies in order to assess the current state of “extinction accounting”. Following this analysis, the authors explore and discuss a potential framework for extinction accounting which may be used by companies to demonstrate their accountability for species and disclose the ways in which they are working alone, and in partnerships, to prevent species extinction.

Corporate disclosures relating to rhinoceros may be interpreted as emancipatory. The authors identify several disclosure themes dealing with rhinoceros in integrated and sustainability reports of large South African companies and on their websites. Contrary to initial expectations, there is evidence to suggest corporate awareness of the importance of addressing the risk of this species becoming extinct.

The authors have relied on public corporate disclosures and would like to extend the work further to include interview data for a further paper.

An extinction accounting framework may be applied to corporate accounting and accountability for any species under threat of extinction. The framework may also be considered for use as a tool for institutional investors as well as NGO engagement and dialogue with stakeholder companies.

The rhinoceros has, from the analysis, significant cultural, heritage, eco-tourism and intrinsic value. Developing and implementing an emancipatory extinction accounting framework to prevent extinction will have a substantial social and environmental impact.

This is the first attempt to the knowledge to explore accounting for extinction and a possible extinction accounting framework. It is also the first attempt to investigate accounting and accountability for the rhinoceros.

From 1979 to 2023, the takaful structure has been adopted in many jurisdictions, making the documenting of its early days of establishment relatively difficult and somewhat unreliable. This is unlike conventional insurance, where the history and legislation are well documented and archived in various research (Hellwege, 2016; Marano and Siri, 2017). The purpose of this paper is to provide a chronology for the establishment and development of takaful via the takaful establishment in each jurisdiction, documenting its first takaful operator and first takaful regulation.

This paper has used a qualitative method in the form of reviewing literature and available data such as journals, books and official resources. The data is thoroughly analysed in order to build the chronology for takaful. It adopted an exploratory research design, which is deemed suitable in situations where few works of literature have examined the subject (Neuman, 2014). The paper explores the establishment and non-establishment of takaful in 57 countries. The paper categorises the countries into seven regions starting with the GCC, Levant, Asia, Central Asia, Africa, Europe and Others.

The takaful chronology presented in this paper shows that takaful operations exist in 47 jurisdictions, starting from Sudan and the UAE in 1979, with the most recent adopters being Morocco and Iran in December 2021. It is found that 22 jurisdictions do not have takaful regulations, and the Takaful Act 1984, issued in Malaysia, is considered the first takaful regulation that sets the basis for other regulations that follow.

The paper contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive chronology of takaful, especially as the few existing timelines have been found to be incomplete and consist of contradictory information.

The development of the current European economic area maritime cabotage market occurred when, at a policy level, the European Union forced the opening of its member-states cabotage markets to Community shipowners and extended this openness, in 1997, to the european free trade area countries. A two-tier cabotage market emerged, where a European economic area legislative framework co-exists with the legislative acts of each member-state. With such a unique background, this paper aims to investigate both the European economic area member-states and the rest of the world cabotage regimes and identify a list of reasons and policy measures used to implement cabotage policies.

By means of a desk research methodological approach, this paper analyses, from a geographical perspective, different countries’ cabotage policies and classifies them, and identifies in a systematically way a set of reasons and policy instruments that support each of chosen policies approach.

The outcome indicates that only a few countries promote free liberalised cabotage services and that most countries favour protectionist cabotage policies, whose governments can control the number of foreign vessels participating in these trades. Cabotage regimes have been categorised and the reasons behind both policies and respective policy instruments have been identified.

Quite often, researchers only focus on the cabotage policies of the European economic area countries, the USA, Australia, Japan and South Korea. This paper value rests on its ability to incorporate cabotage policies from other African, Asian and Latin American countries and to update existing information on the subject. Overall, this paper paves the way to broaden the cabotage knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the extent of protection available for whistleblowers in South African criminal cases.

This paper first provides a brief background of crime in South Africa and argues that the concept of the whistleblower is just a buss word or collective noun. The methodology of this paper consists of a literature review of whistleblowers and relevant laws that can be used to protect whistleblowers in South African criminal cases.

This paper concludes that the existing law as primarily contained in the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 provides appropriate protection for whistleblowers in South African criminal cases.

Whistleblowers provide information on criminal, civil and disciplinary wrongdoings. This study focuses on the protection of whistleblowers pursuant to mainly the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977.

The originality of this paper lies in the approach to the handling of whistleblowers in South African criminal cases. This is the first research done with the emphasis on the use of mainly the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 to protect whistleblowers in South African criminal cases. The contribution of the study is that, by using this approach, it can provide protection and save lives, and it may enhance the willingness of whistleblowers to blow the whistle, which will be beneficial to the community of South Africa as a whole.

The purpose of this study is to examine the South African banks’ customer due diligence (CDD) practices in the fintech era to mitigate money laundering (ML) risks and ensure financial stability. Financial technologies have brought substantial transformations to the financial services sector. However, such technologies have exposed the sector to emerging risks that threaten the integrity and stability of the financial system globally. Before any bank–customer relationship is established, proper customer background checks must be conducted. These background checks enable financial institutions to validate information provided and ensure customers are properly risk profiled. Failure to risk profile customers could result in financial institutions being used as conduits for ML. Undoubtedly, CDD procedures are pivotal to overall anti-money laundering efforts and curbing financing terrorism in a regulatory framework.

A qualitative research approach was adopted to address the research questions of the study. Given the confidentiality associated with the financial services sector, data triangulation was used in blending mainly secondary and primary data sources. Secondary data sources used in the study were published reports available in the public domain that were corroborated with subject matter experts’ interviews.

Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that in South Africa, technological solutions have been incorporated into CDD functions, which is now risk-based (enhanced due diligence). Also, legally, South Africa has incorporated the biometrics, integration with Department of Home Affairs and Companies and Intellectual Property Commission databases, customer consent to third-party sources with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act and the Protection of Personal Information Act.

The shift towards digital banking in South Africa results in increased data and dynamic risk profiling. This study advocates a policy shift requiring a risk-based approach to mitigating emerging ML risks (in particular digital laundering), especially in the wake of South Africa’s recent greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force.

South Africa attained democracy over 24 years ago. The changes in South Africa's Constitution allowed for protection for all citizens. Despite these freedoms and the promise of change, the country is plagued by violence, corruption and crime. These crimes affect the LGBTQ+ people of the South African population. These citizens have been protected by the Constitution; however, they continue to live their lives in a paradox, between protection and prejudice. LGBTQ+ people experience high levels of hate crimes which extend to violence, assault, bullying and cyberbullying. This chapter focuses on the legal protection and challenges experienced by South African LGBTQ+ people.

Business rescue, as a mechanism to aid financially distressed companies in South Africa, has received considerable academic and practical recognition. However, the business rescue plan is an overlooked and, perhaps, underdeveloped aspect of the regime. For stakeholders, this is the ultimate decision-making document. Creditors are the most influential stakeholders in business rescue proceedings owing to their voting rights. For creditors to make informed decisions and exercise their votes meaningfully, the business rescue plan should be transparent and adequately disclose relevant and reliable information. This study aims to identify creditors’ primary information needs to enhance the sufficiency and decision-usefulness of business rescue plans, not only to entice the vote of creditors but to enforce accountability from practitioners.

Using a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 executives from 10 South African financial institutions.

The findings reveal that comprehensive disclosure of financial, commercial and legal information in business rescue plans was a critical antecedent for stakeholder decision-making. Additionally, leadership and social impact information were influential determinants. This study advances academic knowledge and, for practitioners, adds value to the development of business rescue plans. This can enhance creditors' confidence in supporting the rescue effort and approving the plan.

This study advances academic knowledge and, for practitioners, adds value to the development of business rescue plans. This can enhance creditors' confidence in supporting the rescue effort and approving the plan.

The originality of this article lies in its investigation of how creditors assess the information in BR plans as a precursor to supporting the company’s reorganisation in a creditor-friendly business rescue system such as South Africa. This study provides novel insights into the decision-making process, particularly how creditors assess BR plans, address information asymmetry and vote on the plan.

Previous research has indicated that trusts are used to commit various economic crimes, but limited studies examine the exact method of how trusts are abused. This paper aims to determine how trusts are abused to conceal assets in insolvency and divorce proceedings. Apart from discussing how fraudulent trusts are evaluated by South African courts, two court cases will also be analysed to determine how trusts have been abused in the past to conceal assets in insolvency and divorce proceedings.

The methodology used is a literature study, predominantly using court cases and relevant statutes as the primary sources of information. The difference between a sham and alter ego trust is discussed, whereafter two court cases are dissected to identify how trusts have been abused to conceal assets.

The study found that trusts can be abused in different ways to conceal assets in insolvency and divorce proceedings. This can vary from the way the trust is established to the way the trust is used. But trusts are particularly susceptible to abuse when there is no separation between the ownership and enjoyment of trust assets, and the trust lacks independent trustees.

The research finding can be used to better understand how trusts are abused in divorce and insolvency proceedings.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on secondary equity offerings (SEOs) by examining the impact of the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy on secondary equity offering (SEO) pricing dynamics of South African Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

With a sample of 152 SEOs of South African REITs from 2010 to 2020, ordinary least squares (OLS) models, fixed effect models, parametric and non-parametric tests were applied to test for the impact of BEE on the underpricing of SEOs.

Significant underpricing is discovered in highly compliant (BEE) REITs; in other words, SEOs pricing of BEE compliant REITs are more underpriced compared to non-compliant BEE REITs. With this, BEE compliant REITs and more so, highly compliant BEE REITs in particular leave more money on the table.

The government is therefore aware of the impact policy interventions play when REITs raise financing through SEOS. With these, highly compliant BEE REITs will need to be more strategic when making BEE compliance decisions as this is shown in our study to impact the underpricing of SEOs.

This is the first study to investigate SEO underpricing for the BEE policy using the South African REITs context.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate effectiveness of the graduate development programme that was aimed at the recruitment and professional development of black engineering graduates through the workplace learning method.

The paper adopted qualitative research strategy using in-depth interviews with semi-structured interview guide that was developed after an extensive review of related literature. Data were analysed using thematic analysis technique.

Result of the paper indicates that the strategy provides an effective mechanism for the inclusion and professional development of black engineering graduates. Coaching and mentoring relationships were found to be an effective way for knowledge and skills transfers.

Although this study presented valuable insights into the complexity of the graduate development programme in South Africa, the authors consider it appropriate to draw some limitations to study for in order to provide some guides on the conduct of a similar study by future researchers. It is important to state that qualitative studies inherently lack external validity that limits its generalisability to a wider context. Further, a non-probability sampling method was used in this study thus posing a threat to the scientific representativeness of the participants. At last, but very important is the emotion and tension that is usually associated with social research and discussion regarding the legacies of apartheid in South Africa. This research was not insulated from such sensitivity and social influence. To this extent, while practical efforts were made to mitigate this factor during the interviews, there is no guarantee that the respondents were completely honest, and not influenced by extraneous nuances and considerations in their responses to the questions. In view of the methodological and social limitations to this study, future researchers could consider, for example, the use of a mixed methods wherein a quantitative research component is conducted on trainees of the programme in order to validate or disprove the answers provided by the training managers which were purely from operator/organisational, rather than training participants’ perspective. The mixed method approach could also enhance the external validity or generalisability of the research outcome to a wider context. At last, the administration of structured questionnaire through the use of a web-based survey could potentially eliminate emotions, social tension and response bias since both the researcher and respondents do not engage in a face-to-face contact and personal interaction. This also effectively protects personal identity of both the researcher and respondent.

Not much research has been conducted in the direction of the graduate development programme as an effective strategy for the career advancement, inclusion and affirmation of black engineers within the engineering landscape of South Africa. Corporate and professional skills development managers could integrate the outcome of this paper into a policy framework that shapes corporate social investment, diversity and inclusion management at the workplaces.