Lauren Fine

Full Profile

Lauren has acted for both corporate and private clients, including a range of listed national retailers, manufacturers, property developers, hotel owning companies and property holding companies. Her experience includes, but is not limited to, contractual, delictual, administrative, restraint of trade, testamentary, franchise, shareholder, director and property disputes. She has also successfully challenged and set aside legislation.

She has prosecuted and defended actions and applications in all forums including the Constitutional Court, SCA, various High Courts, Equality Courts, the Financial Services Tribunal, the Copyright Tribunal, the National Credit Tribunal, the Consumer Council, Magistrates and Regional Courts, the Commercial Crimes Court and private and AFSA regulated arbitrations.

Lauren represents creditors in business rescue proceedings, including in applications to remove business rescue practitioners. She has also represented a wide range of stakeholders in insolvency proceedings.

Lauren attended the University of Cape Town where she obtained her BA and LLB degrees. She is an admitted solicitor of England and Wales (non-practicing) and is an accredited mediator with a certificate in commercial mediation from UCT.

Lauren was named an Acritas Star Lawyer in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 and 2022.  She was also voted Best Lawyer for Arbitration and Mediation in 2021, 2022 and 2023 as well as for Litigation in 2022 and 2023.  Lauren was further awarded with Litigation and Disputes Resolution Team of the Year Award at the African Legal Awards in 2022. Lauren has been recognised as a recommended  commercial disputes lawyer for 2023 by Legal 500  .

"She is a meticulous and diligent attorney when it comes to putting litigation matters together, she is brilliant at building a case and making quite sure she protects her clients. She is hard working and fun” - Nomination for Acritas Star Lawyer award

“She is meticulous, dedicated and approaches litigation with a lot of common sense.” - Nomination for Acritas Star Lawyer award.

Lauren is a member of the executive committee of the South African Restructuring Insolvency Practitioners Association for the Western Cape.

Lauren is a member of the executive committee of the South African Restructuring Insolvency Practitioners Association for the Western Cape.

Experience

• Advising International Hotel Owners on International Management Agreements and Branding and Management Agreements with their operators and specifically in relation to those managed by the Hilton Hotels and Resorts, Rezidor Hotel Group (South Africa) in respect of Radisson Blu hotels and Rezidor Hotels APS Danmark in respect of Park Inn hotels.
• Setting aside inspection fees to be paid to Assignee for inspection of grain products: Successfully appealed the decision of the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development on behalf of the Consumer Goods, Retail and Services sectors, a significant number of whom are directly affected by the proposed tariffs and procedures. Had the notice not been overturned, the cost to the industry and ultimately the consumer would have been in the region of R100 million in the first year and Leaf, a private company with international shareholding would have profited at the expense of those South Africans on and below the breadline. The consumer was saved from the additional charges which would have made bread unaffordable to those on the bread line.
• Interdict and Review of decision to seize meat analogue products: Successfully interdicted the seizure of meat analogue products and set aside the Executive Officer’s directive prohibiting meat analogue products from using naming conventions congruent to those used for processed meat products, and authorizing the seizure of any meat analogue products which make use of the congruent naming convention as well as the subsequent decision to seize such products – without a warrant, ostensibly in terms of section 8 of the Agricultural Products Standards Act  119 of 1990. 
• Challenge to music royalty tariff for playing background music in retail stores: Successfully brought an application (to the Copyright Tribunal, Supreme Court of Appeal and Constitutional Court) on behalf of listed retailers against the South African Music Performance Rights Association (SAMPRA) in which the retailers challenged the needle-time royalty tariff in the Copyright Tribunal and the retail tariff was reduced by approximately 75%.
• Challenge to affordability assessment regulations to the NCA: Successfully challenged, on behalf of 3 national listed retailers, and set aside the affordability assessment regulations to the National Credit Act.
• Opposing claim by regulator of breach of the NCA: Successfully opposed an application brought by the Credit Regulator against a listed national retailer to, inter alia, declare the retailer to be in breach of the provisions of the NCA BY allegedly breaching the terms of the NCA by allegedly including club membership fees as a cost of credit
• Challenge to legislation: Brought a constitutional challenge to section 2B of the Wills Act.
• Search and Seizure: Obtained a civil search and seizure order, on behalf of an internal listed insurance company, to search premises and seize stolen goods if found (believed first ever in civil case).
• Liquidation: Successfully placed a company that carried on business as a fund manager and managed pension fund money paid as a premium by pensioners who purchased annuity from an Insurer.  Pension money was “lost” under its watch. Despite numerous efforts on the part of the insurer to ascertain the whereabouts of this money, the directors of the fund, assisted by its business rescue practitioner, made every attempt to delay and obfuscate disclosing where the monies were. A forensic investigation into the matter revealed a Ponzi scheme involving pensioners money.