COMPETITION ACT
HILARY JOFFE: State rivalry rages over competition law
Conflicting positions and interests emerge as economic policy priorities of new administration emerge
One of these days, a new administration will be in place and honest debate will start again on the government’s economic policy priorities and how best to pursue them. When it does, all the conflicting positions and interests within the government will — and should — surface. And though new leaders have been promising policy certainty and policy coherence, negotiating it won’t be easy. A taste of this was on offer last week at a panel discussion on the proposed amendments to the Competition Act. Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel has proposed to tackle SA’s high levels of economic concentration. The amendments, which were published for public comment at the beginning of December, aim to tackle concentration using an expanded version of the existing tools of competition law. The competition authorities would be required to take levels of concentration into account explicitly when they evaluate mergers or scrutinise anticompetitive conduct cases. But the main tool, which is a...
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