Today's edition
Shell Shocked
Good morning. Shell spent twelve years and more than a billion rand hunting oil off the Wild Coast, and on Friday the Constitutional Court cancelled the lot. Enjoy the clarity, because it is the last of it today: SAA will not say why its acting boss is placed on special leave, the regulator will not say when its do-not-call list switches on, and Uber will not say which four cities get its driverless taxis.
Everyone else is keeping their options open. Let's get into it.
MARKETS
RIGHT OF REFUSAL
Shell has lost its Wild Coast exploration right, and the renewal route with it
Shell sold its South African petrol stations last month to lean harder into exploration. On Friday the Constitutional Court took the exploration away. The court set aside the offshore right Shell and Impact Africa have held off the Wild Coast since 2014, and closed the renewal route a 2024 appeal ruling had left open. Between them the two companies had already put more than R1 billion into it. The problem was never the geology: a 2022 High Court ruling found the right was granted unlawfully because the fishing and farming communities along the Eastern Cape coast were never properly consulted.
Where it leaves Shell:
- The 2014 right and its renewals stay cancelled, and the renewal route the appeal court left open is closed.
- Justice Jody Kollapen, writing for the majority, held that the money already spent cannot outweigh how seriously the law was broken.
- One opening remains: if the freeze on new applications lifts, Shell and Impact Africa can apply again, on the same footing as anyone else.
Sustaining the Wild Coast and Natural Justice ran the case for five years. They now have a right that stays cancelled, rather than one waiting to be renewed.
CALL WAITING
South African phones took 17.47 billion unwanted calls in six months
The phone rings, the number is unfamiliar, and you let it go. South Africans did that a lot more often this year. Truecaller, the caller identification app, counted 17.47 billion unwanted calls to local phones between January and June, up 25.2% in a year. Across 63.1 million people, that is close to 270 calls each.
The fix has been written down since April: marketers must register with the National Consumer Commission and check its opt-out register monthly, or face penalties up to R1 million. The Commission says the launch is very soon, and has not named a day.
BAGEL BITE
What part of the human eye controls how much light enters?
A. Cornea
B. Retina
C. Iris
DOING THE ROUNDS
South African Airways is on its third chief executive in under four months. The board put acting group CEO Matshela Seshibe on special leave with immediate effect on Friday, pending an internal process it would not describe, and cited its commitment to governance and accountability. Chief legal officer Koekie Mbeki, a ten-year SAA veteran, takes the job immediately. The Auditor-General could not give an opinion on the airline’s last set of books, which reported an operating profit of R336 million. Full story →
Edward Kieswetter left the tax office in April and by May was running his own company. After seven years as commissioner of the South African Revenue Service, he is now chief executive of vEKtor Solutions Laboratory, which he says codifies forty years of fixing broken things. That record runs from an Eskom power station he managed in his thirties to a tax agency he took over after state capture. He is not selling slide decks; traditional consultancies, he says, are becoming irrelevant. Full story →
Truworths told the market its sales and earnings both fell, and the share rose 5%. February’s budget and cooling inflation had South African shoppers looking up, the retailer says, until conflict in the Middle East pushed oil prices higher and took the money straight back out of their pockets. Group sales for the year to 28 June fell 0.9% to R21.8 billion, and earnings per share will land 2% to 4% lower. Investors bought it anyway, sending the share up 5.13% on the day. Full story →
Uber and Pony.ai are putting more than 2,000 driverless taxis into Europe. The pair announced on Friday that the cars will go into four European cities, on top of the service they already run in Zagreb with a local operator. They named neither the cities nor a date. Pony.ai supplies the self-driving technology, Uber supplies the app, payments and customers, and local firms handle the cleaning and charging. For scale, Waymo runs about 5,000 robotaxis worldwide, most of them in the United States. Full story →
WEATHER
BAGEL GAMES
Have you got what it takes to win today’s Wordle? Play here →
THE ANSWER
As for the Bagel Bite, the answer is: C. Iris
The iris is the coloured part of the eye that controls the size of the pupil, which is the opening that lets light inside. In bright conditions, the iris makes the pupil smaller to reduce the amount of light entering. In darker conditions, it makes the pupil larger so more light can reach the retina and help you see.
That’s your Monday wrap. Enjoyed it? Forward it on, a friend can subscribe in a click. Written by the Business Bagel crew.
