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The recent decision of the Constitutional Court in Competition Commission of South Africa v Pickford Removals SA (Pty) Limited may have a material effect on the future prosecution of prohibited practices – including cartel behavior and abuses of dominance.

The Pickford decision relates to the interpretation of section 67(1) of the South African Competition Act as it stood before it was amended by the Competition Amendment Act, 2018.  The section said:

“…a complaint in respect of a prohibited practice may not be initiated more than three years after the practice has ceased”

The main finding of the Constitutional Court was that section 67(1) of the Competition Act does not constitute a prescription provision, but a procedural time-bar provision, which in the event of non-compliance can be condoned.  The effect is essentially that a prohibited practice complaint does not necessarily lapse three years after a prohibited practice has ceased.

In its finding, the Constitutional Court set aside an order of the Competition Appeal Court (CAC) and the matter was remitted to the Competition Tribunal (Tribunal) for further hearing.
Continue Reading Widening the net – the Constitutional Court’s softening of the time-bar defence under South African competition law

On 13 February 2020, the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition (South Africa) brought the long-awaited buyer-power and price discrimination provisions into effect. These provisions were introduced through a suite of amendments made to the Competition Act (the “Act”) in early 2019. They may be summarized as follows:

  • the price discrimination provisions prohibit dominant sellers

…

It is generally accepted that agreements between competitors to fix prices, allocate markets and collude on tenders almost always have harmful effects on competition. Competition laws in various jurisdictions have, therefore, been drafted to address this and, in turn, agreements or understandings between competitors which provide for price fixing, allocating of markets and / or…

Joint ventures are generally only of interest to competition authorities when they trigger merger notification obligations, or are otherwise used as a platform for collusive or anticompetitive behavior.

Recently, the South African competition authorities’ interest has been peeked in joint ventures that have purportedly been used as a platform for cartel activity, and a number…

This post was originally published as a bulletin on Fasken.com under the title “Unpacking the Competition Amendment Bill: Market Inquiries“.

The Competition Amendment Bill seeks to address two key structural challenges in the South African economy: concentration, and the racially-skewed spread of ownership of firms in the economy.

At the 11th Annual Competition Law, Economics and Policy Conference in September 2017, the Minister of Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel, made the following comment when explaining how economic concentration might be tackled:

“It seems to me to be better that it be done through the trusted and predictable processes of competition regulation and its sound institutions than that it be left to laws that simply mandate the breakup of companies irrespective of the economic logic…”.

Market inquiries are seen as one of the five priorities in addressing this objective.  The Background Note published with the Amendment Bill states –

The package of amendments… envisage that market inquiries will become the chief mechanism for analysing and tackling the structural problems in a market, thereby advancing the purposes of the Act. The proposed amendments to the chapter relating to market inquiries will enhance the market inquiry process and will ensure that its outcomes include measures to address concentration and the transformation of ownership.Continue Reading South Africa: Unpacking the Competition Amendment Bill – Market Inquiries