This book of friends (liber amicorum) is a tribute to Professor JC Sonnekus by colleagues and friends from Europe and South Africa to celebrate his more than 40 years in the academy and his contribution to law and its development. Authors from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and South Africa make contributions on the multitude of subjects and areas of jurisdiction to which professor Sonnekus contributed over the years. Subjects that are discussed, are divided under a general heading, the recognition and enforcement of judgments, prescription, uncertainty regarding common law rules and how the courts sometimes act in a law-making capacity, conditional cession and `who has the King's voice' - looking back at the convictions of the people and the legal convictions in the nineteenth century and how it could still lead to new insights. The law of delict leads to contributions on accountability of children, the law concerning liability in general and liability for an omission. The law of succession contains contributions on wills and trustees; the section on estoppel and enrichment touches on aspects of estoppel and the Turquand rule, as well as Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. International developments are discussed in the section on the law of marriage and family law with contributions on marriage contracts and the consequences of divorce under German law, general matrimonial property law in Europe and the influence of the Belgian constitutional court on family law. Insolvency law includes business rescue and the actio Pauliana and the law of contract contains a potpourri of contributions on the interpretation of contracts, perpetual contracts, evictions and independent warranties. The law of things (property) section contains contributions on property law and habitatio, credit security law, fragmented property, syndicated loans, servitudes and digital assets. This collection of essays concludes with two contributions on insurance law relating to self-steering and distance-steered vehicles and the sources of insurance law.

The authors emphasize the commonality of the underlying principles, eg the principle of accessoriness, governing all categories of security rights.

The vesting of a real security right does not change the balance of the assets in the debtor’s estate – it merely ring-fences the recoverable value of the identified objects of security in favour of the preferred and secured creditors. With personal security rights, the recovery is extended to include all the assets of someone other than the primary debtor – the surety. International reviewers’ comments on the Afrikaans edition confirm the value of this approach and add:

The research invested in and included in the book is impressive on several levels. The book remarkably combines a dogmatic scientific approach with usefulness of legal practice. With regard to legal practice, I have admired the in-depth manner in which the authors scrutinize the South African case law in all its dimensions and recent developments. Their analysis is developed in the text or, very often also, in the footnotes which contain a treasure of developments. On a scientific level, both the historical and comparative developments … contributes to the existing academic work” Prof Dr Vincent Sagaert – KU Leuven

The book has three main advantages. First it gives an excellent overview of the law on securities in general and the one on South African law in particular. Second, what makes the book a pleasure to read is its emphasis on caselaw. Third, the focus on comparative law makes the book highly interesting to lawyers with a foreign law outlook. The book is also very much up to date” – Prof Dr Ewoud Hondius, University of Utrecht.

In hierdie werk word gekonsentreer op die gemene onderliggende beginsels van enersyds die verskillende vorme van saaklike sekerheidsregte waar telkens sprake is van 'n bepaalde saak as vermoensobjek waarop die skuldeiser 'n beperkte saaklike sekerheidsreg vestig en in sommige gevalle, danksy sodanige beperkte saaklike sekerheidsreg oor die aldus geidentifiseerde saak van die skuldenaar, 'n preferente en versekerde aanspraak op verhaal uit die opbrengs van daardie sekerheidsobjek het ter voldoening van sy uitstaande skuldvordering. 'n Skuldeiser kan andersyds ook met sy skuldenaar ooreenkom om vermoensobjekte, anders as die objekte van saaklike regte van die skuldenaar, as sekerheidsobjekte te identifiseer. Die vestiging van 'n saaklike sekerheidsreg verander nie die saldo van boedelbates van die skuldenaar waarteen sy skuldeisers verhaal kan neem nie - dit plaas hoogstens 'n kordon om die verhaalbare waarde van die geidentifiseerde sekerheidsobjekte ten gunste van die versekerde preferente skuldeiser. By persoonlike sekerheidsregte word daarteenoor verhaal geneem op bates wat aan 'n ander regsubjek as die primere skuldenaar behoort en wat dus nie deel van die saldo van die skuldenaar se bates vorm nie.