Authority of agent to bind juristic person

 

In Africast (Pty) Ltd v Pangbourne Properties Ltd [2013] 2 All SA 574 (GSJ) the court considered a written contract signed by representatives of the parties to determine the existence of authority of the defendant’s signatories to bind it (Pangbourne) at the time when the contract was signed.

It was held there is no principle of law that compels a juristic person to confer authority on its agents in a specific way. There are thus no formal rules or legal principles according to which a juristic person has to go about in conferring authority on an agent. The existence of authority is a question of fact.