CHEMICAL INDUSTRY
Tribunal finds fault with consent agreement
The Competition Tribunal has refused to confirm a consent agreement reached between the Competition Commission and four chemicals companies after a five-year process because the agreement does not specify what aspect of the Competition Act was being contravened. The issue arose because of the terms of the agreement between the four companies — Sasol, Foskor, AECI and Omnia Fertilisers — over their jointly owned ammonia storage facility at Richards Bay. Joint ownership of large-scale facilities is a common way for companies to share costs, something the commission acknowledged. The commission initiated an investigation in 2012 into clause 12 of the partnership agreement between Sasol, Foskor, Omnia and AECI. The clause set out a pricing formula under which the parties could sell ammonia to each other if they could not agree on a price through bilateral negotiation. The formula was based on an international index plus a dollar freight rate. The commission concluded that this clause co...
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