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A person issued with a business visa must employ or prove that at least 60% of his or her total staff complement are South African citizens or permanent residents.

A foreign person willing to obtain a business permit needs to fulfill various requirements as set out in Art. 15 of the Immigration Act 2002.

For intra-corporate transferees (ICT), there are limits of stay up to two years, but has recently been extended to four years and must be longer than six months. For contractual service suppliers (CSS) and independent service suppliers (ISS) there are limits of stay between six months and one year.

For intra-corporate transferees, the Immigration Act states that a chartered accountant acting on behalf of the employer of a foreign worker must certify that the employer needs to employ a foreign worker within the Republic for the foreigner's job description.

For contractual services suppliers (CSS) and independent service suppliers (ISS), it is stated that the labour market tests must satisfy the Department in the manner prescribed that despite diligent search the employer has been unable to employ a person in the Republic with qualifications equivalent to those of the applicant.

A quota system is in place for contractual service suppliers (CSS) and independent service suppliers (ISS) as prescribed under Art. 19.1 of the Immigration Act. Furthermore, a category of occupations for foreign workers is set annually.

It is reported that several factors limite competition and the effects of liberalization in the South Africa telecommunications market. These include: interconnection, tariff regulation, access to scarce resources and other anti-competitive practices.

In 2013, Orange (France) complained that mobile termination rates in South Africa were very high and that the wholesale prices are not capped by the regulator. In the same year, South Africa's third-largest mobile operator (Cell C) filed an antitrust complaint against MTN Group and Vodacom, because the dominant incumbents were discriminating between their on-net and off-net effective prices with a dramatic and direct impact on smaller operators' ability to acquire new customers.

Telkom, the telecommunications incumbent in South Africa, is 51% state owned.

South African telecoms market was deregulated in February 2005, with the legalization of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). Yet, it is reported that local loop unboundling has not been implemented.

South Africa is signatory to the WTO Reference Paper on Basic Telecommunications, but with exemptions.

There is currently no examination of South African patent applications before grant. It is reported that this implies that errors and deficiencies in the application are not identified by the patent office in the prosecution process and it is likely that any patent granted on the application will be invalid.

The Copyright Act provides for a copyright exception based on the notion of fair dealing. When the source as well as the name of the author are mentioned, literary or musical work can be used for the purposes of research, private study, criticism, review and reporting current events.

Mergers and acquisitions in South Africa are subject to screening and approval under the Competition Act of 1998. This act allows South Africa’s Competition Commission to review investment beyond the scope of antitrust, with public interest considerations, such as its effect on specific industrial sectors, employment within South Africa, the ability of small businesses to become competitive, and the ability of national industries to compete internationally.

South Africa has adopted a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) policy which includes the following measures:
- The South African Government will implement FOSS unless proprietary software is demonstrated to be significantly superior. Whenever the advantages of FOSS and proprietary software are comparable, FOSS will be implemented when choosing a software solution for a new project. Whenever FOSS is not implemented, then reasons must be provided in order to justify the implementation of proprietary software.
- The South African Government will migrate current proprietary software to FOSS whenever comparable software exists.
- All new software developed for or by the South African Government will be based on open standards, adherent to FOSS principles, and licensed using a FOSS license where possible.

South Africa is not a party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement.

Preferential procurement regulations provide for a preference point system whereby tenderers that have a higher Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) status level (i.e. that score better in terms of black economic empowerment) enjoy progressive procurement preferences.