The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (DTIC) has filed a notice to appeal the decision of the Competition Tribunal to bar the Vodacom-Maziv merger.
The decisions of the Tribunal are appealed to the Competition Appeal Court and the DTIC said this week that Minister Parks Tau decided to file the notice of appeal as a formality to comply with the law.
In October the Tribunal barred the proposed transaction between Vodacom and Business Venture Investments No 2213, known as Maziv.
Merger of the giants
The transaction would have merged the country’s largest mobile operator, Vodacom, with one of its largest fibre infrastructure players, Maziv, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Community Investment Ventures Holdings (CIVH)
CIVH has two main subsidiaries, Dark Fibre Africa and Vumatel.
In terms of the transaction, Vodacom would have acquired a stake in Maziv with some of its assets going in the opposite direction.
During the Tribunal hearings various witnesses led evidence including the merging parties, Frogfoot Networks, Telkom divisions Telkom Consumer as well as Small Business and Mobile Networks, MTN and Rain.
Various interest groups gave evidence
The Tribunal further invited Hero Telecoms to give factual testimony while four economic experts gave evidence on behalf of the Competition Commission, the merging parties and MTN.
This week, DTIC ministerial spokesperson Yamkela Fanisi said in a statement that since the Tribunal had yet to publish its reasons for barring the transaction, Minister Parks Tau “considered it prudent to formally note an appeal to the tribunal’s decision in order to comply with the statutory time line for appeal…
“Once the reasons are provided, the minister will assess and advise accordingly. The minister’s participation in the merger proceeding was based on public interest grounds, which led to substantial public interest commitments that would have significantly boosted investment, created jobs and resulted in the growth of fibre and mobile connectivity,”
Fanisi said.
Tau believes the transaction a boon ’for the economy
The DTIC had told the Tribunal during the hearings that the merger had “substantial positive public interest effects” since the parties had committed to investing at least R10-billion over five years.
The DTIC had also noted that the parties had agreed to “passing at least one million new homes in lower income areas over a five-year period, creating up to 10 000 new jobs and establishing a R300-million enterprise and supplier development fund to prioritise SMME development”.
The parties had also promised to provide high speed internet to over 600 schools and police stations at no cost and that telecoms giant Vodacom would invest up to R14-billion into South Africa through this transaction.
