2005 – The Tribunal’s Decision

Despite the fact that the summary of the Tribunal’s deliberations, with non-confidential information only, ran to some 63 pages, its decision was straightforward. The Tribunal considered that New Protector was a failing firm – “or more precisely, a failed firm, within the meaning of the Competition Act 1998” – at the time of the merger transaction. It considered further that the failing firm consideration outweighed any potential loss to competition that may arise as a result of this transaction.

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On 31 October 2006, executives at the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) and private hospital group Netcare were eager to hear the Competition Tribunal’s decision regarding the acquisition of the New Protector Group hospitals by Phodiclinics (Pty) Ltd (a division of the Medi-Clinic Group) and DHJ Defty. Phodiclinics had made the bid in 2005 after New Protector had been placed under provisional liquidation in late 2004. On 3 March 2006, the Competition Commission had recommended to the Tribunal that the transaction be approved without conditions.

In July 2005, the BA/Comair (Comair) executives were eagerly awaiting the Competition Tribunal’s decision in the case brought by the Competition Commission against South African Airways (Pty) Ltd (SAA), South Africa’s dominant domestic airline. The case had been brought on behalf of the Nationwide Group, a domestic air travel rival to SAA. Nationwide lodged its complaint in October 2000, contending that, since 1999, SAA’s incentives schemes to travel agents were so attractive as to force travel agents into selling SAA domestic travel tickets to the exclusion of Nationwide.

The Competition Act of 1998 came into force in South Africa on 1 September 1999, and enabled the establishment of three bodies: the Competition Commission (the Commission), The Competition Tribunal (the Tribunal) and the Competition Appeal Court (CAC). The Commission’s main responsibility would be to investigate mergers and anti-competitive behaviour. Most cases would be decided in the Tribunal, while the mandate of the CAC was to review any decision of the Tribunal or consider an appeal arising from the Tribunal.

In August 2018, Precious Mpepele, council member for the Energy Intensive Users Group of South Africa (EIUG), received the draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) from the Department of Energy (DoE). In her capacity as an EIUG council member, it fell to Mpepele to write a response to Jeff Radebe, the minister of energy. Her response needed to balance the interests of industry, South Africa’s development initiatives and the environmental impact of the nation’s energy mix. How should she respond with regard to the future of large-scale renewable grid energy in South Africa?

In February 2009, Justin Smith, manager of the Good business journey at Woolworths, a leading South African department store, was a worried man. Woolworths had launched its five-year sustainability strategy just under two years before. After undertaking an impact assessment, Smith was concerned that the original targets – which covered transformation, social development, the environment and climate change (see Exhibit 1) – had been set without a clear understanding of exactly what it would take to achieve them.

It was 15 February 2004 and Gerhard Nicolaus, director: metals and allied industries in the South African Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), was preparing for a potentially accrimonious meeting of stakeholders in the scrap metal industry. Since 2001, local purchasers of recycled aluminium had expressed concern that the prices of recycled aluminium in SA were inflated, and that scrap was being exported at the expense of local demand.

On Saturday 13 January 2007, the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, stepped up to the podium at a mass rally of African National Congress (ANC) supporters in Witbank, Mpumulanga to deliver the annual January 8 Statement of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC). Although its purpose was to celebrate the 95th anniversary of the ANC, the event also provided an opportunity for the ANC leadership to project a united front after a year of turmoil within South Africa’s ruling political party.

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In January 2019, as South Africa’s minister of finance, Tito Mboweni, was finalising the country’s 2019 budget, the country’s fiscal position remained on a knife-edge. On the positive side, the expenditure ceiling to which the government had committed itself in the 2018/19 budget remained intact. Nevertheless economic growth predictions remained low, the country’s debt was reaching unsustainable levels and the perilous financial position of some of the country’s state-owned entities (SOEs) was putting the entire fiscus in peril.