Tag: competition law

The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition published draft vertical restraint regulations for comment along with a memorandum to provide context in respect of the draft regulations. These regulations relate to the prohibition on restrictive vertical practices as set out in section 5 of the Competition Act, 89 of 1998 and attempt to provide a framework on how the Competition Commission should approach practices which are potentially prohibited in terms of section 5 of the Act.

It is vital for employees to understand how to conduct themselves during dawn raids or interactions with regulators. Failure to do so may result in significant consequences for the employer. The European Commission recently fined a European company after a senior employee deleted private WhatsApp messages during a dawn raid pertaining to a competition law violation.

How to get rich in the 21st century details how India’s prime minister wants his country to reach rich world status by 2047. His formula lies in incentivising homegrown industry, a diversified services base, and a relentless focus on what’s good for the economy.

Michael O’Dowd wrote in his book, The Industrial Revolution Myth and Reality, about the widely held myth that the industrial revolution in eighteenth century England was evil, which he contended was a persistent but mistaken myth.

The Competition Commission has recently referred WesBank, the car finance division of First Rand Bank, and Toyota Financial Services South Africa (TSA) to the Competition Tribunal, to be fined 10% of their turnover for the alleged violation of the Competition Act.

What are the legal implications for international oil companies (IOCs) operating in host countries where supplier due diligence is a challenge? The short answer to the question is that IOCs face ever increasing legal risk.

The Competition Commission has recently prohibited a transaction between Emerging Capital Partners Africa (ECP) and Grand Parade Investments, a private equity firm listed in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The transaction would have seen ECP acquire Grand Parade’s stake in Burger King South Africa (BKSA) as well as Grand Foods Meat Plant (Pty) Ltd.

South African competition law is highly regarded internationally. In 2018, the Global Competition Review (GCR) ranked the Competition Commission as the best regulator globally. With such praise, one would expect the economy to be the most competitive in the world. This is not the case. Instead, South Africa ranks very poorly in the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World report, which measures the freedom of economies globally with standards like regulatory burden, property rights protection, intervention and the general ease of opening and doing business in a country.

The paper details competition and regulatory issues in the South African digital economy and sets out the Commission's intended strategic actions in relation to competition law issues, and proposed strategic actions for other regulators to consider concerning their respective regulatory areas, namely telecommunication and broadcasting, data protection and financial services regulators.

A number of fundamental changes to the Competition Act demonstrate government's strengthened policy commitment to drive radical economic transformation in South Africa and are likely to be more regularly used in the midst of COVID-19.