Browsing by Author "Thompson, Simon"

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    The civil liability of credit rating agencies in South African law: recent developments in comparative perspective
    (2013) Thompson, Simon; Jooste, Richard
    The losses caused by the on-going financial crisis now exceed $4 trillion. This is in addition to the associated social and economic costs that are more difficult to measure. From a litigator’s perspective it is not surprising that these massive losses have triggered a very large number of civil claims. In the immediate aftermath of the crisis these claims were mostly run-of-the-mill misrepresentation actions by investors against their investment advisors, but there is now a clear, global trend where plaintiffs are casting their nets more widely and going after the financial actors allegedly responsible for the crisis itself. One class of defendants who fit squarely in this category are credit rating agencies. These financial actors are facing a global push by lawmakers to regulate their operations with, inter alia, the express aim of setting parameters for the liability ratings agencies should incur in the publication of ratings.
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    Just joking: jest as a defence to defamation
    (2023) Thompson, Simon; Boonzaier, Leo
    The South African law of defamation seeks to balance the plaintiff's right to reputation against the defendant's right to freedom of expression. Humour complicates this balance because its appreciation is hyper context-dependent and subjective, rendering the line between serious defamatory statements of fact and non-serious jokes difficult to draw. This dissertation discusses the ways in which the South African law of defamation regulates humorous statements, paying particular attention to the element of defamatoriness and the defences to an action for defamation. It argues that superiority humour, which is funny because it belittles the plaintiff, is being unduly curtailed by the courts' erroneous application of a flawed test for defamatoriness based on the plaintiff's mere exposure to ridicule. The undesirable result is that the defendant will be held liable for superiority humour even in those instances where the plaintiff has not been defamed. It also argues that humour should receive greater protection under the defences available to the defendant in an action for defamation, particularly the defence of qualified privilege.