Browsing by Author "Lebakeng, Piti Jonas"

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    The complicated personality of Joint-Ventures
    (National University of Lesotho, 2025) Lebakeng, Piti Jonas; Seth Pusetso Macheli
    There is a need for collaboration and corporation in the business world in order to realise ultimate success. Companies are encouraged to join forces in order to maximize the utilization of their skills and capacities to complete the big development projects in the developing economies. The present study investigated the formation, regulation and ultimate dissolution of the business relations between the companies, which had grouped themselves and formed joint ventures in the performance of tendered projects in Lesotho. It has become evident that there are challenges with regard to the process of liquidation of the joint-ventures on account of insolvency. The main challenge is brought by some how complicated and not clearly determinable personality of the joint-ventures composed of incorporated companies. The law in Lesotho still recognizes partnerships as mere aggregation of the persons who formed such partnerships. The joint-ventures are considered as a species of partnerships. The study recommends that the law be amended and that partnerships be conferred independent legal personality in certain respects, which will make a process of liquidation of joint-ventures an easily manageable process whereby only the estate of the partnership shall be considered during the liquidation process. The study further revealed that the Insolvency Act of 2022 has not sufficiently addressed the problems associated with the aggregate personality theory accorded to the partnerships in Lesotho, which were encountered inthe sequestration process under the repealed Insolvency Proclamation of 1957, and still to persist under the present legal regime. The study has further concluded that the extension of personal liability on the directors of companies in the joint-ventures is rather unjustifiably tramples on the notion of limited liability. It is recommended ultimately that culpable conduct on the part of the directors has to be main consideration for the extension of liability for damage or loss to the company on the directors.