CO-APPOINTMENTS ARE NOT CHARITY — THEY ARE HOW A PROFESSION TRANSFORMS

The criticism, at its bluntest, runs like this: co-appointments are tokenism; the emerging practitioner is a passenger; fees are divided over work that was never shared. Where that describes reality, the Association condemns it as squarely as any critic. A signature-only co-appointment transforms nothing and discredits everyone associated with it — including the emerging practitioner whose name is lent to it.

But the conclusion some critics draw — that co-appointment practice should be abandoned — mistakes the abuse for the instrument.

Professions transmit competence through shared work

Every regulated profession transmits competence the same way: candidate attorneys under principals, pupils at the Bar, trainee accountants under supervision. Insolvency and business rescue are no different, except in one respect — there is no formal apprenticeship built into the appointment system. The competence that matters is acquired only inside live estates: proving claims, running meetings, dealing with the Master, holding a plan together under pressure. If appointments concentrate in a closed circle, experience concentrates with them, and the profession reproduces itself unchanged. Co-appointment is the mechanism by which the work — and therefore the competence — is deliberately shared.

The law already contemplates joint office

Joint appointments are not an invention of transformation policy. The Masters have long appointed joint trustees and joint liquidators to substantial or contested estates, and each joint appointee holds the office fully: the duties are owed by each, each must furnish a bond of security, and each is answerable to the Master and to creditors for the administration. On the business rescue side, the licensing scheme under the Companies Regulations 2011 contemplates exactly this structure — junior practitioners accepting appointment to larger companies jointly with, or under the supervision of, senior or experienced practitioners. The design assumption of the entire regulatory framework is that newer practitioners grow inside joint mandates.

What meaningful skills transfer looks like

The Association's position is that a defensible co-appointment has visible content. At a minimum:

• a written division of responsibilities settled at the outset and kept on the estate file, allocating substantive functions — not administration only — to the emerging practitioner;
• the emerging practitioner conducts, and is seen to conduct, core processes: proof of claims under section 44 of the Insolvency Act 24 of 1936, questioning in interrogations under the winding-up provisions of the previous Companies Act preserved in transition, creditors' meetings, and in rescue matters the first meeting under section 147 and the plan meeting under section 151 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008;
• correspondence with the Master's office conducted in the emerging practitioner's own name, not routed through the senior office;
• shared control of the estate's banking, reporting and accounts — not delegated bookkeeping;
• a fee allocation that tracks the division of work actually performed; and
• a closing review at the end of the administration: what was done, what was learned, and what the practitioner is ready to lead next.

Where these elements are present, the co-appointee's next appointment needs no sponsor. That is the test of whether transfer happened.

What we say to Masters, creditors and our own members

To the Masters' offices: structure joint appointments deliberately, and ask at the close of an estate who did what. The estate file will answer.

To institutional creditors, whose requisitions shape final appointments: a requisition supporting a well-structured joint appointment costs nothing today and builds the panel of practitioners you will rely on tomorrow. The Association has asked the Office of the Chief Master to give co-appointment practice a formal footing in its proposals on appointment policy, and creditor support will determine how quickly that lands.

And to members on both sides of the pairing: the Association's code of professional conduct — independence, diligence, honest dealing with trust monies — applies with full force inside a co-appointment. A senior member who hoards the work, or an emerging member who accepts payment for presence, will find no shelter in the language of transformation.

Co-appointments are not charity. Properly constructed, they are the profession doing what professions have always done: teaching the next generation inside the work itself.