South Africa\u2019s antitrust watchdog has accused pharmaceutical company Adcock Ingram of profiteering from the Covid-19 pandemic, according to people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Competition Commission\u2019s allegations against the company include that it failed to pass on significant pricing benefits and discounts provided by medical-technology company Baxter International.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These discounts were for vital dialysis machines and related drugs during the health crisis, said the people who asked not to be identified, as the information isn\u2019t public.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The penalty for such offences is as much as 10% of annual revenue or more for repeat offenders, the people said. The commission will refer the case to the Competition Tribunal for prosecution, the people said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Johannesburg-based Adcock is jointly owned by South Africa\u2019s Bidvest, with a 64.3% majority stake, and India\u2019s Natco Pharma, which acquired the remaining shares last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adcock subsequently delisted from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adcock referred a request for comment to Bidvest, which said it could not comment on the matter. The Competition Commission also said it couldn\u2019t comment at this stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pharmaceutical company reported total sales of R9.76 billion in the year through June 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2008, Adcock\u2019s critical-care unit was admitted to price-fixing and collusive tendering for state hospital contracts. At the time, it was forced to pay a R53.5 million penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2017, the company was hit with a fine for allegedly unlawfully pre-implementing a merger structure with Bidvest before receiving formal regulatory approval. The firm settled without accepting the charges at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reported by Loni Prinsloo for Bloomberg.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Africa\u2019s antitrust watchdog has accused pharmaceutical company Adcock Ingram of profiteering from the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":862194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[13311,853],"class_list":["post-862189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-adcock-ingram","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862189","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":862195,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862189\/revisions\/862195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}