{"id":22038,"date":"2012-09-13T10:42:18","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T08:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=22038"},"modified":"2012-09-13T13:35:03","modified_gmt":"2012-09-13T11:35:03","slug":"competition-commission-strikes-back-in-telkom-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/22038\/competition-commission-strikes-back-in-telkom-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Competition Commission strikes back in Telkom case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a title=\"Competition Commission\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/4841-Competition-Commission\">Competition Commission<\/a> has filed a cross appeal against a portion of the Competition Tribunal\u2019s decision in the case between <a title=\"Telkom\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1637-Telkom\">Telkom<\/a> and the South African Value added Networks Services.<\/p>\n<p>In August, the Competition Tribunal imposed a penalty of R449 million on Telkom for abusing its dominance in the telecommunications market between 1999 and 2004.<\/p>\n<p>Telkom announced in late August that it will appeal against the tribunal\u2019s ruling, effectively fighting the R449 million fine which the company has to pay.<\/p>\n<p>The Competition Commission has now hit back by filing its own legal papers on 11 September 2012, cross-appealing a portion of the tribunal\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompetition Commission (&#8216;the Commission&#8217;) hereby cross appeals against that portion of the decision of the Tribunal, dated 7 August 2012, in which the Commission&#8217;s claims against Telkom based on a contravention of ss 8(a), 8(c) and 9 of the Competition Act were dismissed,\u201d the legal document reads.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Competition Commission, the tribunal erred in its ruling that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No conclusion on equivalence was required since the Commission had failed to make out a case on harm;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The harm pleaded by the Commission arising out of the differential was confined to consumers;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>No proof of harm (specifically net harm) to consumers was tendered by the Commission;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Accordingly, the Commission had failed to make out a case under s 9, and consequently, no penalty could be imposed for this contravention.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Competition Commission further argued that the tribunal should have found that Telkom was guilty of excessive pricing and price discrimination over the period examined in the trial.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission concluded that the tribunal should have fixed the penalty at a materially higher level [than the R449 million penalty Telkom received], saying that the appropriate level is to the order of R3 billion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Telkom appeal can backfire, warns legal expert\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/21527\/telkom-appeal-can-backfire-warns-legal-expert\/\"><strong>Telkom appeal can backfire, warns legal expert<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Telkom to appeal R449m fine\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/21002\/telkom-to-appeal-r449m-fine\/\"><strong>Telkom to appeal R449m fine<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Further Telkom pain on the way?\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/columns\/19690\/further-telkom-pain-on-the-way\/\"><strong>Further Telkom pain on the way?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Telkom fined R449m for market abuse\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/19539\/telkom-fined-r449m-for-market-abuse\/\"><strong>Telkom fined R449m for market abuse<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Irresponsible Telkom in a shambles: CWU\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/6172\/irresponsible-telkom-in-a-shambles-cwu\/\"><strong>Irresponsible Telkom in a shambles: CWU<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Competition Commission has cross-appealed against the Tribunal\u2019s decision, asking that a R3 billion penalty be imposed against Telkom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1516,26,65],"class_list":["post-22038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-competition-commission","tag-headline","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22038"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22043,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22038\/revisions\/22043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}