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NOPE
Low reported severity Regulatory Action

Johannesburg High Court refers a company's lawyers to the Legal Practice Council over fictitious citations that junior counsel said likely came from an AI tool

In an urgent application by Northbound Processing against the South African Diamond and Precious Metals Regulator, Acting Judge DJ Smit of the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, found while preparing judgment that two cases cited in the applicant's heads of argument did not exist. According to ITWeb, which saw the court documents, junior counsel first said a wrong version had been filed, a corrected version was found to contain two further incorrect citations, and on the court's direct inquiry junior counsel acknowledged that the citations likely originated from an AI tool called Legal Genius, used under deadline pressure. The judge accepted the legal team's apologies and found no intent to deceive, but referred the conduct of the applicant's legal practitioners to the Legal Practice Council for investigation (June 2025). The applicant obtained the relief it sought.

AI system
Legal Genius (reported)
Occurred
Jun 2025
Reported
2 July 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Professional Harm
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Justice · Work
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
4 claims: 4 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
At least 1 person

AI system as recorded: Legal Genius, an AI legal research tool that junior counsel told the court had been used and which, junior counsel said, claimed to be trained solely on South African legal sources

What Happened

The application. Northbound Processing brought an urgent application in the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, to compel the South African Diamond and Precious Metals Regulator to release a refining licence it had already granted. While preparing judgment, Acting Judge DJ Smit found that two cases cited in Northbound's heads of argument, offered on points about mandamus relief, were fictitious (ITWeb). Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr's alert says the court determined the fictitious cases would have been dispositive if they had applied.

The explanation. Asked for clarification, junior counsel first said the wrong version of the heads had been filed because of confusion over short-form citations and supplied a corrected version; opposing counsel pointed out that this version contained two further incorrect citations. On a direct inquiry from the court, junior counsel acknowledged that the non-existent citations likely originated from an AI tool and said that, under deadline pressure and after another junior counsel withdrew, a tool called Legal Genius had been used. Senior counsel took full responsibility, apologised and said the heads had received only a general review before submission.

The referral. The judge accepted the apologies and found no intent to deceive the court, but said even unintentional errors in this context can have severe implications, endorsed the Mavundla judgment and an English High Court decision on AI-generated authorities, and ordered that the conduct of Northbound's legal practitioners be referred to the Legal Practice Council for investigation. ITWeb reports the non-existent references undermined the credibility of Northbound's submissions; Northbound nevertheless obtained the relief sought (Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr).

Limits. The judgment itself could not be read (SAFLII returned HTTP 403 and no archived copy exists); the account rests on ITWeb, which saw the court documents, and a law-firm alert analysing the judgment. The exact judgment date and the number of practitioners referred are not stated in the sources read.

Reported harm

According to ITWeb and a law-firm alert on the judgment, the court referred the applicant's legal practitioners to the Legal Practice Council for investigation after heads of argument cited non-existent cases that junior counsel said likely came from the AI tool Legal Genius.

Outcome

Ongoing

The court referred the conduct of the applicant's legal practitioners to the Legal Practice Council for investigation, as reported by ITWeb and Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr (case number 2025-072038). The outcome of any Legal Practice Council investigation is not reported in the sources read. The mandamus application itself succeeded.

What remains unknown

  • The exact date of the judgment and of the referral order.
  • How many practitioners were referred and the outcome of any Legal Practice Council investigation.
  • Which citations Legal Genius produced and whether the tool provider responded.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. ITWeb, which saw the court documents, reports that on the court's direct inquiry junior counsel acknowledged that the non-existent citations in the heads of argument likely originated from an AI tool and said a tool called Legal Genius had been used under deadline pressure; Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr's analysis of the judgment says counsel acknowledged the use of AI. The tool's output (citations of cases that do not exist) was filed in the heads, and the court referred the practitioners to the Legal Practice Council because fictitious authorities were placed before it. The attribution rests on counsel's acknowledgment as relayed by these two accounts of the judgment; the judgment itself was not read.

4 claims: 4 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported While preparing judgment in Northbound Processing's urgent application against the South African Diamond and Precious Metals Regulator, the acting judge found that two cases cited in the applicant's heads of argument did not exist, and a corrected version supplied by junior counsel contained two further incorrect citations.

Causal attribution. The judgment as described by ITWeb and by a law-firm alert; both rest on the same judgment, which was not read.

  • itweb.co.za(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'two cases cited in Northbound Processing'; 'were fictitious'; 'the revised version contained two additional incorrect citations'
  • cliffedekkerhofmeyr.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'heads of argument contained fictitious case citations that appeared to have been generated by artificial intelligence'; 'contained two additional incorrect citations'
Reported On the court's direct inquiry, junior counsel acknowledged that the non-existent citations likely originated from an AI tool and said a tool called Legal Genius had been used under deadline pressure.

Causal attribution. Counsel's statement to the court as relayed by ITWeb; the law-firm alert relays the acknowledgment without naming the tool.

  • itweb.co.za(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'acknowledged that the non-existent citations likely originated from an AI tool'; 'he had used a tool called'; 'which claimed to be trained solely on South African legal sources'
  • cliffedekkerhofmeyr.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'counsel acknowledged the use of AI, accepted full responsibility'
Reported The judge accepted the legal team's apologies and found no intent to deceive the court, but ordered that the conduct of Northbound's legal practitioners be referred to the Legal Practice Council for investigation.

Causal attribution. The court's order as described by both accounts of the judgment.

Reported Northbound nevertheless obtained the relief it sought in the application.

Causal attribution. The law-firm alert's account of the judgment.

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in full in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-14 (HTTP 200). ITWeb reports from court documents it saw; the judgment itself was not available to the agent. Applies to s1.

Read in full in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-14 from a 2025 Internet Archive capture (the live page returned HTTP 403). A law-firm client alert analysing the same judgment; same origin as ITWeb. Applies to s2.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: South Africa.

The heads were filed in, and the referral ordered by, the Gauteng Division of the High Court, Johannesburg (ITWeb, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr). Where counsel prepared the heads is not stated, so no event or affected-person country is recorded from the court seat.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-14: Published because two accounts of the judgment report that the court referred the applicant's lawyers to the Legal Practice Council after heads of argument cited non-existent cases, and that junior counsel told the court the citations likely came from the AI tool Legal Genius.

People described

The applicant company's legal practitioners, including the junior counsel who used the AI tool, whose conduct was referred to the Legal Practice Council for investigation; not named here because a referral is not a finding of misconduct.

People reported harmed in this case

At least 1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

Additional affected people are described without a reliable count.

One person counted: the junior counsel who told the court the tool had been used, among the legal practitioners whose conduct was referred. The order refers the practitioners as a group and the sources read do not state how many were referred, so others are unquantified. The applicant company is not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#south-africa#johannesburg#high-court#fictitious-citations#legal-practice-council#legal-research-tool

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Johannesburg High Court refers a company's lawyers to the Legal Practice Council over fictitious citations that junior counsel said likely came from an AI tool. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-johannesburg-high-court-refers-applicant-lawyers-to-legal-practice-council-over-ai-tool-fictitious-citations

BibTeX

@misc{2025_johannesburg_high_court_refers_applicant_lawyers_to_legal_practice_council_over_ai_tool_fictitious_citations,
  title = {Johannesburg High Court refers a company's lawyers to the Legal Practice Council over fictitious citations that junior counsel said likely came from an AI tool},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-johannesburg-high-court-refers-applicant-lawyers-to-legal-practice-council-over-ai-tool-fictitious-citations}
}

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