South Africa: Leading lawyer Rob Legh of Bowmans succumbs to Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has snatched the life of leading lawyer  Rob Legh, the chair and senior partner of law firm Bowmans who played a significant role in the work of Business For SA (B4SA).

Legh, 59, passed away on Thursday night after a two month hospitalisation for Covid-19, most of it spent in ICU.

A widely respected pioneer in the field of competition law acting in several high profile cases, Legh led Bowmans for seven years as chair extending the firm’s reach into the rest of the continent and consolidating its position as a leading law firm.

As member of the B4SA, which was established by business to help mitigate the effects of the pandemic, Legh played a dominant role over the past 15 months in negotiating and fine-tuning the Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters), which proved a vital lifeline for millions of workers prevented from working by the hard lockdown.

The Unemployment Insurance Fund made Ters payments to 267,000 employers and 5.4-million employees at a cost of R58.7bn between April 2020 and March 2021.

Business Unity SA vice-president and B4SA steering committee chair Martin Kingston said friends, family, colleagues and clients were “devastated” by Legh’s death which was a huge loss to the country and the business community among others.

Kingston said he had worked with Legh extensively and found him a “profoundly competent and insightful lawyer with a very diverse experience”. A keen strategist, he was a thoughtful and principled adviser with a wry sense of humour.

Kingston said as leader of the labour market work stream in B4SA Legh had played an extraordinarily important role, displaying tenaciousness and relentlessness in ensuring that those who had been disadvantaged by the pandemic were taken into consideration. He worked long hours in doing this while also performing his duties as Bowman chair. His principles, personality and diplomacy in relating to the various social partners was a “huge asset” to organised business.

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https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2021-07-02-leading-lawyer-rob-legh-succumbs-to-covid-19/