Maria Nkhonjera and Tatenda Zengeni
Since opening its doors in January 2013 the COMESA Competition Commission (CCC) has seen growth in the number of its merger cases. This growth followed a number of challenges initially faced with the interpretation of certain provisions of the Act, jurisdiction and high filing fees.
Anthea Paelo
The complexity and range of mobile money-related services provided in various African countries has grown significantly from ‘basic’ money transfer between people with customers storing currency in a mobile wallet via a handset, to include savings and loan products, insurance and bill payments.
Lauralyn Kaziboni
In April 2015, Pioneer Food Group (Pioneer), the leading breakfast cereal producer in South Africa, with popular brands such as ProNutro, Weet-Bix and Bokomo Limited announced that it was planning to enter into a joint venture (JV) with Future Life Health Products (Future Life), a scientifically formulated nutrient-dense functional food products company.
Anthea Paelo
In August this year, two shipping companies were fined by the Competition Commission of South Africa for restrictive horizontal practices including; fixing a purchase or selling price of a product or service, dividing markets and collusive tendering in the transport of vehicles, equipment and/or machinery by sea on the route between Japan and South Africa.
Shingie Chisoro Dube
The entry of the app-based Uber service into South Africa’s local passenger transport industry in 2013 raises important competition and regulatory issues. Uber is a taxi smart phone application that uses the customer’s smartphone to detect their specific location using the global positioning system (GPS), and instantly connects the customer to the nearest available driver. Uber taxis work in exactly the same manner as traditional metered taxis in that they both take the customer to their intended destination for a metered fee. However, Uber is a technology-driven service that uses a convenient electronic taxi-hailing system to find, book and pay for taxi services. This presents an innovative new technology platform in the local taxi industry.
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.
Mohlahlego Cornelia Matumba
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) of Zambia released its guidelines for merger regulation in August 2015. This is important for providing clarity on the process for merger regulation in Zambia and provide the commission and stakeholders with a structured and transparent framework for these assessments.
Mohlahlego Cornelia Matumba
Firms engaging in a cartel are attempting to increase their joint profits through an agreement to suppress competition among themselves. The harmful effects of cartels are related to the number of firms involved, the size of the affected market, and the durability of the cartel.1 Cartelist often agree on the strategy for pricing, supply to the market or market allocation and they face the critical challenge of coordinating the behaviour of all cartel participants around the agreed strategy. This includes monitoring the behaviour of cartel participants to identify and prevent defections from these collusive strategies and preventing entry or expansion by non-cartel firms.
Maria Nkhonjera
The recent merger in South Africa between Puma Energy and Brent Oil, recently approved by the competition authorities, may change the competitive landscape in regional and South African markets for fuel retail, leveraging Puma’s long-established presence throughout the rest of the region. This article considers the implications of the merger.
Thando Vilakazi
This quarter has been a busy one for CCRED. In June 2015, CCRED had the opportunity to present our recent research on coordination in regional fertilizer markets at the World Bank and OECD conference on Promoting Effective Competition Policies for Shared Prosperity and Inclusive Growth, in Washington. Several CCRED papers on regional development were presented at the TIPS Annual Forum on Regional Industrialisation and Regional Integration. And, in July, we had the honour of hosting Prof Eleanor Fox from New York University who presented on competition policy and its potential contribution towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
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.
