Benson v SA Mutual Life Assurance Society[1] is an important case in South African contract law, particularly in the area of claims for specific performance.
The English rules regulating courts' discretion to order specific performance are predicated upon that remedy's availability by way of equitable relief only; they are inappropriate to South African law.
The Appellate Division held, therefore, that the indiscriminate following of English cases in this regard is to be decried.
The decision of the Cape Provincial Division, in SA Mutual Life Assurance Society v Benson (granting an order of specific performance in an action for delivery of shares freely obtainable on the Stock Exchange) was by this reasoning confirmed.
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