The Gauteng High Court (a major provincial court in South Africa) has set aside a 2024 Black economic empowerment code for the legal sector, ruling that Trade Minister Parks Tau approved it without independently assessing or justifying its measures, which included a target of 50% Black ownership at large law firms within five years. The court did not rule on the code's constitutionality or its transformation goals, and sent the matter back to the minister for reconsideration. The case was brought by four major commercial law firms and the union Solidarity, and the decision is a setback for efforts to speed up racial transformation in the profession, though it leaves South Africa's wider affirmative-action framework intact.