According to the South African Competition Act, the competition authorities are obliged to consider public interest grounds in merger analysis. The guidelines which were recently finalised by the Competition Commission of South Africa, and gazetted in 2 June 2016, seek to provide guidance on how the Commission will evaluate public interest considerations when evaluating mergers.
Tatenda Zengeni
The merger between Coca-Cola Sabco’s African bottling operations and SABMiller was recently approved by the COMESA Competition Commission, while it is still under review in some other countries such as South Africa. SABMiller is Coca-Cola’s biggest bottler in Africa with operations in 15 African countries.
Anthea Paelo
South Africa has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world with a Gini coefficient that has remained around 0.65 over the past decade.1 In addition, South Africa’s unemployment rate, using the narrow definition, at 26.4% is very high.2 Much of this has been attributed to the legacy of apartheid during which the majority of South Africans were economically marginalised with few economic opportunities.
Lauralyn Kaziboni and Reena Das Nair
Competition investigations on abuse of dominance by near-monopoly beer producers have typically been limited to national boundaries and within the jurisdiction of single national competition authorities. However, it is increasingly recognised that viewing transgressions as neatly falling within political borders is restrictive, and often misses the ‘bigger picture’ of the firm’s overall strategy and conduct.
