---
title: "Naspers — Media24: employer liability, defamation procedure and restructuring"
language: en
canonical: https://dossiertwist.com/dossiers/naspers/media24-litigation-and-restructuring/
as_of: 2026-09-21
keywords: ["Naspers","Prosus","voting control","Nasbel","Keerom","Wheatfields","Takealot","PayU","Media24"]
---

# Naspers — Media24: employer liability, defamation procedure and restructuring

**Question.** Which court findings and restructuring outcomes are actually supported?

**Answer.** The historical employer judgment concerns a named earlier legal entity. Defamation exceptions and later restructuring have their own parties and procedural limits.

## Negligent employer liability, not every pleaded theory

- Analysis: In June 2005, South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed the appeals of Media24 and an employee in a workplace sexual-harassment case. The trial court had imposed joint civil damages of R776,814. The appellate court upheld the employer’s liability for negligently failing to protect the employee from harassment in the workplace. [s-d251]
  - Qualification: This was civil employer liability. The appeal court did not need to decide the separate question of direct vicarious liability for the harasser’s own delict. The claimant’s identity and sensitive personal history are unnecessary to explain the corporate outcome and are withheld here.
  - Response: The defence relied in part on a group harassment policy in place since 1997 and raised jurisdictional and liability arguments. A policy’s existence did not answer the proven failure to prevent the harm.
  - Outcome: The appeals were dismissed with costs. The historical employer, Nasionale Tydskrifte, was then a wholly owned Media24 subsidiary; that does not establish a current ownership roster.

## Procedural exceptions in the defamation action

- Analysis: Mark Paulsmeier brought a defamation action against Media24, Naspers and journalists, claiming R30 billion jointly and severally, with a further R16.1 million claimed from defendants other than Naspers. The allegations and the amounts were demands in his pleadings, not damages awarded against the companies. [s-d259]
  - Qualification: The judgment dealt with exceptions to the pleaded case. It accepted a subsidiary relationship for purposes of the argument without deciding whether Media24 was Naspers’ direct or indirect subsidiary.
  - Outcome: On 20 May 2022 the court largely upheld the defendants’ exceptions, set aside the particulars of claim and allowed one month to deliver amended particulars, with costs against the claimant. This favorable procedural outcome was not a final merits judgment resolving every possible amended claim.

## Restructuring, job cuts and the distribution-asset disposal

- Analysis: Media24’s 2024 restructuring proposed reducing print operations, migrating titles to digital, selling On the Dot and community newspapers to Novus, and cutting up to 400 jobs. The company paused specified closures and retrenchments pending competition approval. Caxton and Capital Newspapers opposed the plan, arguing that distribution changes and lost print titles would harm competition and access to news. [s-d179] [s-d354] [s-d363] [s-d364] [s-d384]
  - Qualification: The 2020 pandemic-related reductions were a separate episode. A plan to end a print edition is not necessarily the disappearance of the title’s digital journalism. The applicants’ predictions of lost access and higher distribution costs are preserved as arguments, not converted into established outcomes.
  - Response: Media24 attributed its decision to declining print readership and advertising, said migration would occur independently of the asset sale, and described retaining journalists in digital operations. The Competition Appeal Court found that the evidence did not establish the broader composite merger alleged by the applicants.
  - Outcome: The court dismissed the urgent application with costs on 24 December 2024. Later reporting said Caxton and Capital Newspapers sought Constitutional Court relief; the retained report does not establish the final result of that later effort.

## Sources

- [s-d251] Court record source · s-d251
- [s-d259] Court record source · s-d259
- [s-d179] Court record source · s-d179
- [s-d354] Media source · s-d354
- [s-d363] Media source · s-d363
- [s-d364] Other source · s-d364
- [s-d384] Media source · s-d384