{"id":845346,"date":"2025-12-03T11:04:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=845346"},"modified":"2025-12-03T11:05:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T09:05:23","slug":"major-international-companies-accused-of-price-fixing-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/845346\/major-international-companies-accused-of-price-fixing-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Major international companies accused of price fixing in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Eight cargo shipping companies have been referred to the Competition Tribunal for alleged price fixing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These shipping companies include Maersk, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), CMA CGM, Pacific International Lines, Mitsui, Evergreen, COSCO, and K Line Shipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The companies allegedly fixed rates for the transportation of goods between Durban and several Asian cities between 2008 and 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Competition Commission stated that these shipping liners are alleged to have been involved in fixing rates, known as General Rate Increases (GRIs), over a period of more than a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These rates are charged to customers for the shipment of general cargo en route from South Africa to Asia and back, as well as to and from South Africa and West Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Commission\u2019s investigation found that the respondents charged the same GRI for the routes from Shanghai, Ningbo and Shekou to Durban, from Durban to Hong Kong, and from Qingdao to Durban,\u201d the Commission said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makgale Mohlala, head of the Cartels division at the Competition Commission, explained that the Commission has been investigating the matter for some time now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Mohlala, the Commission is confident it has enough evidence to move forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have come to a point where we are satisfied that the evidence we have is enough for the Commission to secure a conviction against these companies for price fixing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While identical pricing raised the first red flags, Mohlala stressed that investigators uncovered more than just suspiciously similar quotes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course, we wouldn\u2019t refer it if there was no such kind of evidence in addition to the pricing,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe do have evidence, and it\u2019s pleaded in the documents, so they now know what we have against them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigation began in 2016 after a customer approached the Commission with concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohlala explained that the customer received price-increase letters from multiple shipping firms, all showing the exact same increase, and was refused a discount by all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission then initiated the investigation, which led to a dawn raid at several major operators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe seized a lot of documents as well as electronic data. We have been analysing this. It\u2019s quite voluminous with the limited resources we have, but we managed to crack it,\u201d Mohlala said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s possible that they have not stopped<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Makgale Mohlala, head of the Carte<\/em>ls division at the Competition Commission<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Asked why the case has taken years to finalise, Mohlala said the scale and complexity of the investigation made it unavoidable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simply not easy,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can say, well, I\u2019m not cracking it, I\u2019m dropping the investigation, or I\u2019m continuing because I\u2019m getting a glimpse of a problem. I\u2019m limited by resources, but I keep on going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission is also not convinced that the conduct necessarily ended in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible that they have not stopped. As part of the prosecution, we will reach the point where we request discovery, allowing us to assess whether they stopped in 2018 or continued.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the companies involved are large international operators, questions have been raised about whether similar behaviour could have occurred elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohlala said this remains unclear. \u201cWe suspect\u2026 but we don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. While the investigation in South Africa focuses on local subsidiaries, he noted that global firms often behave differently across jurisdictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes they decide which jurisdiction they want to respect and which one they don\u2019t want to respect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose that they respect, they\u2019ll get exemptions, and jurisdictions that they don\u2019t respect, they\u2019ll just do as if it is allowed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this, Mohlala said it would not be surprising if the same conduct appeared in other markets. \u201cWe suspect that if they\u2019re doing it here, they\u2019re doing it somewhere else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eight international shipping companies have been referred to the Competition Tribunal for price fixing.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":845352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[853,20681],"class_list":["post-845346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-south-africa","tag-the-competition-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845346","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\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845346"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845361,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845346\/revisions\/845361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}