I recently read a book by Lawrence Wright entitled “Going Clear – Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.” He has previously won a Pulitzer prize for a book called “The Looming Tower” and it is a wonderfully written book. The topic however is highly controversial and there also no doubt that the Church of Scientology has probably sued more people than any other Church or religious group. There will no doubt be some sort of legal action as a result of this book which deals extensively with the leader of the Church, David Miscavige as well as the Church’s star attraction, Tom Cruise. Other famous stars who are Scientologists include John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and the book has plenty of details about the stars, as well as the ordinary members of the Church.

The book alleges, amongst other things, that the Church looks amongst its members for actresses suitable to date Tom Cruise and for example recently set him up with a 19 year old, who he dated for a few months when he was of course was in his late 40’s. Apparently, once you achieve a certain level within the Church, you are allowed to read certain secrets so you understand more about the Church and the world and at OT level III, members allegedly discover that free floating thetans, which are the souls of people who have been dead for 75 million years from other planets, attach themselves to living people and there can be millions of them clustered in each person’s body. In short, as I understood the book to be explaining it, we are all made up of millions of aliens according to Scientology – from another planetary system and a long time ago. I will certainly be interesting, in light of this book, so see what court cases flow from this. The Church, while not necessarily having a huge membership, certainly is extremely wealthy. It is recognized as a religion on some countries while other countries such as Germany do not recognize it as a religion.

I have sat on the Law Society, as a councillor of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces for probably about 8 years. Before that, I was a chairman of the Johannesburg Attorneys Association when I was 30, and chairman of the Gauteng Law Council when I was 35. When I work out the time involved, I sometimes think that I really don’t have the time to sit on the Law Society, because even for a councillor who does not have many commitments, and I don’t have many, it is still easily about 20 working days of your time a year and bearing in mind that there are 21 working days a month, essentially one month of every year goes to the Law Society.

On the other hand, if you are the coal face of the profession you get a chance to discuss and implement policies, know what is coming, where the challenges are and what the problems are. It also exposes you unfortunately to the greedy attorneys – those that overreach their clients, don’t meet their tax commitments and steal trust funds. I still think it is the vast minority of attorneys and unfortunately it is always those that indulge in bad behaviour who make the news. It is not reportable that tens of thousands of attorneys comply with the rules to follow procedures. Every few months we also deal with, what we call “appearances”, which is when attorneys, in terms of rule 101, get a chance to tell the Law Society why they feel they should be re-admitted if they were previously struck off, or why they think they should not be struck off. At times like that you hear a lot of sad stories, of divorces, alcohol and drug addiction and whatever other problems lead to people straying from the path, not following rules and ultimately and sadly even neglecting their clients’ affairs or stealing money. Cases range from those that you would not have a moment’s sympathy for to those, who despite the fact that they have done something wrong and have to be struck off you may have some sympathy for.

On the other hand, bearing in mind that everyone gets a chance, we also deal with people who have been to prison before, have studied to become an attorney while they were in prison and now want to be admitted as an attorney and you have to decide whether or not they should be able to enter the profession. People will say to you straightaway that of course, once they have served their time, have changed and rehabilitated themselves they should be able to do so – but what if that offence, for example, 15 years ago they walked over to somebody, pulled out a gun and shot them in the back and killed them? Should such a person be allowed to be admitted as an attorney? Those are the very real types of cases we deal with on a regular basis, although they are not always as extreme as that.

Tomorrow sees the running of the SA Oaks, a race in which I’ve had a lot of luck over the years. It is probably the premier long-distance race for fillies in the country and the winner of the race often goes on to win the Equus Champion Female Stayer of the Year Award, as my filly Festive Occasion did some years ago. I have also won the race, way back in 2004, with my first ever horse, Sabina Park.

I have a filly in this race, who is a daughter of Festive Occasion who will certainly stay out the distance, but she is coming up against an absolute champion. My filly, Do You Remember, can really only win the race if Cherry on the Top either does not see out the distance, which I believe she will, or she has some bad luck in the race. The owners of Cherry on the Top, who are the Oppenheimers, have more than just the winning stake in a R750 000,00 race to look forward to – if Cherry on the Top wins, they immediately get another additional cheque of R1 million as a bonus for winning all three legs of the Triple Tiara.

The Triple Tiara is the female equivalent of the Triple Crown which is essentially a championship series for three year old horses. Do You Remember has come second to Cherry on the Top in both the previous legs of the Triple Tiara, which were graded races, and so while she certainly has a considerable value both now and at stud, it looks very unlikely that if she keeps bumping into Cherry on the Top, and they are both carrying the same weight, that she will ever beat her.

On the Jockey Club ratings we also have no chance – Cherry on the Top is rated 112 and Do You Remember is rated 100 which means that Cherry on the Top should win the race by at least six lengths, although I think she could win by further if they actually push her – which they certainly have not had to in either of the last two races. I would not be surprised to see Cherry on the Top line up in the July, even though she is only a three year old filly, and if she does she is going to be one of the first two or three favourites in the betting.

I was impressed to see adverts in many newspapers, placed by the Department of Health, for new HIV medication. In the past people used to take the triple cocktail therapy, taking three pills at a time, and obviously that is far more difficult than simply providing people with a combined medication that allows you to take one pill and once a day only.

I think people don’t appreciate the massive impact on HIV in our country, and of course we had the terrible years during President Mbeki’s time as leader of our country during which the issue was ignored. Recommendations were made by our Health Minister at the time that one simply needed to have garlic and, if I remember correctly, beetroot to cure oneself and we have thankfully come a long way now. The new fixed dose combination pill is provided by the Department of Health and it has all of these three different ARV medications all combined in the one pill so that too is a positive step and will help save many lives.

We have perhaps the most famous man in the world living in our country, and every time Nelson Mandela falls ill, the world press descend on whichever hospital he is allegedly at. I say “allegedly at” because it quite often turns out that he is not at the hospital at which they have all camped outside.

It seems so unfortunate to now hear that his family are all fighting about money and his heritage and all of us is damaged by this. We read that there is allegedly bad blood between advocate George Bizos and attorney Ismail Ayob going back to the Mandela “art works” fights in 2005. One of Mandela’s daughters is even holding a series of 95th birthday parties for him in July, all of course of a commercial nature involving boxing tournaments, football games games involving Manchester City, etc, and of course all of this involves a healthy profit. As one of his grandsons was quoted in the Sunday Times, “It is quite shocking that, while someone is still alive, there is a fight over his inheritance … He is being stripped of his clothes and they are being sold off.”

Media reports recently referred to the conditions of Judges in the High Court. High Court Judges from Pretoria advised that they were limited in office space, did not have enough Judges at the Court and in addition to that did not even have enough computers. An advocate who has acted as an Acting Judge in Pretoria even bought himself a reading lamp, because the Court lights often did not work.

Media reports said Judge Cynthia Pretorius said that the Judges were overworked, had far too many matters to deal with and that the problems were made worse by some of the “lazier Judges”, to quote her, who said that she unfortunately has to say that, “because it is the truth”. I have to say that even from the public’s point of view, the toilets and basic facilities at the Courts are pretty poor and have not had enough resources allocated to them, the filing systems and records even worse and the government certainly needs to spend more money on upgrading the conditions for the Judges and improving the functioning of the Courts.

I recently travelled to the south of Johannesburg to play at the Eye of Africa Golf Estate and it was certainly quite interesting. The terrain south of Johannesburg is far more hilly than in the northern suburbs, and there are some beautiful and massive hills, covered in rock that surround the area. I think that it is a development that is going to take a long time to complete and be successful, because there is not very much happening around it and while it is 17 km south of the Johannesburg CBD, it is still miles away from anything.

The golf course itself is in a very good condition and reminds me of Serengeti, although it is not really similar. It’s probably because it has some particularly easy short holes and some fairly tricky ones as well and there are enough warnings about snakes to stop you wanting to go into the rough and look for your ball, should you have the misfortune to hit it there. The course is in a good condition and the greens roll true, which means that the ball stays on the path that you hit it on and do not bump around. What I did not like was the facilities before and after the game, which were pretty ordinary and the halfway house, for lunch, could be substantially improved as could be the options for what to have for lunch. I am also somebody who prefers, when visiting a golf course, to pay an all-in fee, and not to be asked to pay an extra R20 or R30 to hit some balls as a warm-up before the game, and that does seem a little tacky to me, but it is still a practice at many clubs.

Horseracing differs from casinos in that it is really much more of a game of skill and of form. When one is at a casino, the chance of red or black coming up is 50% each time and if there are 36 numbers then each number has an equal chance of coming up. The same cannot be said of horseracing where some horses have little or no chance in every race and all things being equal, with luck in running, the best horse will win.

All things are not equal because where horseracing does become more complex is when handicapping is introduced so as to give all horses an equal chance, largely for betting purposes, so that the better horses carry more weight. The best betting opportunities, from a horseracing point of view, always come in races where a horse has not won before, where all the horses carry equal weight or in an equal weights race, where one horse stands out above the rest and they all carry the same weight. That unfortunately for me was the case in the recent SA Fillies Classic, a R1 million race which was run at Turffontein. The hot favourite in the race was a horse called Cherry on the Top and I told friends and everybody who would listen, that at 8/10, Cherry on the Top was the best bet of the year as far as I was concerned. I had the second favourite in the race, Do You Remember, and I told my friends based on the interviews given by the trainer of Cherry on the Top, as well as the form of that horse, my horse would be beaten by 5 lengths at least by Cherry on the Top. That is precisely what happened in the race, Cherry on the Top romped away to a 5 ½ length victory over my filly Do You Remember and is now eligible for a R1 million bonus if she can repeat the performance on 27 April 2013 in the SA Oaks. I think she will, but what this really does illustrate is that racing, especially at level weights, is fairly predictable, to the extent that I was even able to predict the actual winning distance.

Unfortunately, very few races are run at level weights, and of course there are always going to be factors such as luck and running and dramas that can happen, but in racing, unlike in a casino, all things being equal, the best horse does finish first and the second horse finishes second and it is not just random as to what number or colour comes up. On the other hand when like me you have the 2nd best horse you wouldn’t mind if the better horse carried those extra 6kgs, which she would have to do in a handicap, to give mine a winning chance!
 

I was fascinated to read in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that companies in America are now starting to make people pay more for being unhealthy. They are going to make them pay more for health coverage, and people with above a certain waist line might, for example, at the tyre company Michelin, have to pay as much as $1,000 more per year for health coverage. Some companies also require their employees to supply them with their body mass index, weight and blood sugar level and if they don’t do that they get higher premiums and higher deductions from their salary.

Companies are beginning to give up on linking benefits to good behaviour, because apparently offering people extra money to do certain things generally leads to people either trying to game the system or outright lie that they have done the exercise and now instead they have now set a baseline, when it comes to waist levels, of 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women and if you exceed that, you have extra money deducted from your salary. While some people say that this is illegal discrimination, the companies themselves say they are “wellness incentives”. The pharmacy group, CVS Caremark, is going to fine all staff $600 unless they supply the company with their body fat, blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels by the end of May. The survey points out that overweight workers in America take an extra 450 000 days off work a year, compared to healthy workers and that most of these rules are really designed to tackle weight. If the companies outright tackle the topic of weight, people feel discriminated against and so, as the WSJ says, “While companies can’t say it outright, many of their measures – such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure – are proxies of obesity.” I don’t see any of this happening in South Africa any time soon, but every experiment, if it is ultimately successful in another country, sooner or later comes to South Africa, so it will be interesting to see how such a sensitive experiment by these American companies works – or does not.

The recent death of the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, reminds us of how much of a pioneer she was in terms of women leaders in politics. In a few short decades the number of women leaders have grown considerably and 17 women run their country. Women preside in countries ranging from Lithuania to Liberia with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, probably being the most powerful of all women leaders at the moment. Essentially what Germany decides, especially when it comes to the economic future of Europe, is what goes and so her reach at the moment actually affects the entire world. Australia, Brazil, Malawi and Thailand also have female leaders and one can only see this trend growing. Hopefully, at the every least, we can have fewer wars than when we had in an all-male leadership but I would be interested to hear opinions as to what different perspectives, if any, women may have to leading a country.

Some astounding new research has recently come out and was reported in the New York Times, with regard to the link between heart disease and red meat. It seems that the new link is a substance found in red meat called “carnitine”. It is found in other foods, in smaller amounts like fish, chicken and even dairy products, but it is predominantly found in meat. When it is metabolised by the bacteria in the intestines it ends up as a substance called “TMAO” in the blood and it is TMAO that is linked to heart disease.

TMAO allows cholesterol to get into the artery walls and also prevents the body from excreting excess cholesterol which leads to the heart disease. Amongst the interesting experiments they conducted, was to have a vegan eat a steak and see whether or not there was an elevation in TMAO blood levels in them after eating a steak and they did not have any elevation, but regular meat eaters do. They also discovered that if they gave a regular meat eater, antibiotics to kill all stomach bacteria before eating a steak, then there was no reaction of increased TMAO blood levels in their blood. The doctor who has conducted the survey himself is still eating meat, but he has reduced his meat intake to once every two weeks – but what really worries the researchers is that carnitine is in fact found in many energy drinks, because people believe that it will speed up fat embolism and increase a person’s energy levels. The doctor said, when it comes to energy drinks, many of which include carnitine, that the supplements “are scary, especially for our kids.”

We all have to do our bit to look after the environment and small steps can make a big difference. It can be at home and at the office – and ideally both. One must try not to waste much and to recycle as much as possible.

At our offices, the hot water comes a solar geyser on the roof of the building and we have recycling boxes inside our office for paper, so that drafts and wasted pages can be recycled. I am always looking for more ideas and would welcome any suggestions you have as to how one can recycle and do one’s bit for the environment, not only at home, but especially in the workplace.

South African employees are often shocked to discover that their 30 days sick leave per three years is over a three year period or that they only qualify in the first six months of employment for one day’s sick leave for every 26 days’ worked. We recently had someone at the firm who took almost a week’s sick leave in the first two weeks she was with us, and was shocked to hear that in law she did not actually have sick leave yet.

Few seem to realise at all that in fact our sick leave is far more generous than in most of the rest of the world. They all have visions of working in glamorous and major cities, but they don’t understand that the work ethic in those cities is entirely different. For example, New York City is going to allow for sick leave only now, and it will be limited to 5 days sick leave a year. In other words, until now, there has been no paid sick leave at all in New York and where employees only have to give a staff member now 5 paid days sick leave per year, they would be astounded at staff members in South Africa getting 30 days sick leave per three years. I am aware of many companies who take the approach that there will certainly be no sick leave before and after public holidays as well as on Fridays and Mondays and it is amazing how many people choose to extend weekends by managing to come up with a whole host of stomach ailments and flu five times a year, on the days before and after weekends and long weekends.

We would all do our bit for taking this country a lot further if people stop taking advantage of employers and abusing sick leave in a country which is already far too generous when it comes to leave, which of course has put off many of the multi-national companies, especially American companies, from operating in South Africa to begin with. One can make any argument one wants to get more paid and sick leave, because one likes it, but businesses don’t and they simply invest their money in other countries rather than South Africa.

The Masters begins at Augusta National in Georgia today. There is a huge South African contingent taking place, reflecting our prowess at golf. Out of approximately 90 competitors from all over the world 8 are coming from South Africa. Last year Louis Oosthuizen lost in a play-off and Charl Schwartzel of Blair Atholl won the tournament two years ago. Another South African has also won it in the past decade, namely Trevor Immelman.

One hopes with 8 players in the final field that by the time they get down to the final 9 holes on Sunday evening, a South African is in contention. I would not be surprised to see Tiger Woods win the tournament because he has been in fantastic form early in the year, but his former coach said that of all the majors, the course at Augusta National suits him the least because it is set up for a draw, which is a ball that moves right to left through the air whereas Tiger specialises in a power fade, which is a ball that moves from left to right in the air and which can be a bit of a problem when almost every hole bends or turns from right to left. Of the South Africans I think that Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel have the best chance and are in fabulous form at the moment, and to win my money would be on Tiger Woods, who I think will finish ahead of Rory McIlroy.

The Masters begins on Thursday this week and it is the first of golf’s major tournaments. There are four majors each year, with the Masters probably being the most famous, arguably because it is played on the same golf course whereas all of the other majors rotate golf courses. I was lucky enough to be at the Masters for all four days last year in the small town of Augusta.

Augusta is about 2 hours’ drive south of Atlanta, Georgia. It is an amazing golf course, with far more hills and slopes than appears on television, and every hole is basically set up to look fantastic on TV and every part of the golf course is manicured and in wonderful condition. Augusta National is probably the course most amateurs desire to play the most, and most probably also because it is the most impossible to get to play, unless you know one of about 300 members, most of whom are billionaires and includes Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric. It is being based in the south, and really has been the seat of some controversy over the years including the fact that it only allowed black members to be admitted from 1990, and only admitted its first two female members in 2012. At one stage it required all caddies to only be black! The official site of the Masters can be found at www.masters.com.

Many people take note of our advertising, but few would know that statistically almost 25% of the referrals to De Broglio Inc come from existing clients referring their friends. The best advertising you can do is to keep your clients happy, to make sure that you charge reasonable fees and to get great results for your clients. All the advertising in the world does not help unless you can back it up with excellent service and results and that is why I am always happy to know that such a large percentage of our work comes from existing clients. It is not exactly a field where everybody knows somebody who has been seriously injured in an accident or in a case of medical negligence, but I am very happy that when they do they think of us and call De Broglio Inc. Incidentally, we have a toll free number which you can call by dialling 0800ACCIDENT and of course, there is so much more to read, including many of our case studies and cases that we have handled for clients on www.accidentclaim.co.za or for personal injury matters, including medical negligence matters on www.personalinjury.co.za .

A lady who was paralysed in a motor vehicle accident, when she was only 4 years old, has been given permission by the Supreme Court of Appeal to sue her former attorneys for under-settling the case. The judgment of Kweyiya v Charles MacLeod was delivered on 27 March 2013 and a copy of the judgment can be downloaded here.

The attorney defended the case on the basis that she should have sued him within one year of turning 21 years old and her defence was that when the case was settled, she was only 12 years old, and it is perfectly reasonable that at that time she relied on her mother to act in her best interests and had no reason to believe the case had been settled any other way than appropriately. She came across information in April 2006 which indicated to her, at that time, that the matter had not been properly settled and she had sued within three years of that date. The Court held that prescription only began to run when she discovered the information about how her case had been settled and concluded that there was no basis on which to suggest she should have known she had a claim against her previous attorney, until such time as they supplied her with the documentation relating to the settlement of her case.

The judgment makes it clear that a case for negligence does not automatically prescribe three years later but only once the person who is alleging the negligence has knowledge of the minimum facts that are necessary to institute action. It does not mean, as the Court suggested, that a person can simply sit back and do nothing at all, and that will postpone the commencement of prescription. The test is what a reasonable person in that position would have done and the onus is on the defendant to prove a plea of prescription including the date on which the plaintiff obtained actual or constructive knowledge of the debt. The attorney, or the Fidelity Fund, will now have to, some 25 years after the settlement, pay out.
 

We are looking at some relief from May with the fuel price. This month the fuel price went up, but it was only because of the extra contribution to the Road Accident Fund, something none of us can complain about, given that it does give us protection when we are driving on our increasingly dangerous roads.

The other was just the general revenue tax that the government adds to fuel every year, which is a rather sneaky way of avoiding a confrontation, for example, over increasing the VAT rate. Many forget that most countries around the world during the recent times have increased their VAT rate whereas South Africa has stayed the same and in a way they are hitting us on fuel instead. In the UK, for example, the VAT rate was already 17,5% at the beginning of 2011 and was increased to 20% and they are already talking about a further increase. At the moment, and it is early days in the month, we are looking at about a 27c decrease in the fuel price in April but if we get Rand strength, or the international fuel price declines, we could be looking at a bigger decrease.

There are often discussions between attorneys, and of course employees, as to the employee turnover rate at firms.  Of course, companies often see employees leaving as a bad sign, but the counter-argument is that employees sticking around for too long can be just as damaging. 

The question as to the ideal rate is answered by the international recruiting site Monster who says that injecting a company with new blood and ideas is always good and that a normal turnover rate for a firm is approximately 15% a year, although in some industries it can be much higher.  That means, during the course of a year 15% of the current employees leave the firm.  Obviously, employees resign for a whole host of reasons, including some whose poor performance and steady stream of warning letters lead to them resigning, although one could almost say, to quote the site, “they were ‘pushed’.”  The benefits of a poorly performing employee actually leaving is of course far higher than the cost of their salary and so some resignations are worthy of a dinner out to celebrate! 

I sold my Microsoft shares recently, and I gave up on Windows 8. Microsoft shares are up just over 5% over the last year, trading now at $28,25. I really do generally like new technology, the latest versions of software and I still look forward to Office 2013, but I could not live with Microsoft Windows 8 any longer.

It has literally driven me mad, and it is some of the most simple and basic things that are the most irritating. On Windows 7 if I wanted to send dictation to a secretary I simply go to my music folder, click on the dictation folder and right click on the item I would want to send and it would allow me to send it via e-mail and automatically use the name of the file as the subject. In Windows 8 you cannot do that unless you go onto a very colourful page, then type in the word “computer” and then select the folder. If I send dictation by Windows 8 I invariably have to type the subject name and click a few more buttons than I would have in Windows 7.

Exactly the same applies to photographs where you can no longer right click on the photograph, unless you are in the computer section, which adds extra steps, and you also cannot just scroll backwards and forwards through the pictures because whichever one you open is the one that is then displayed on the screen. So, the shortcuts that were there in Windows 7 are not in Windows 8, and I cannot really think of any benefit that Windows 8 brought with it to allow me to overlook these irritations. That is not to mention of course that much of the software, as is always the case, has not really been updated for Windows 8 and so I have problems with various other compatibility issues with other programs.