COSATU press statement on new competition legislation

Title: COSATU press statement on new competition legislation
Creator: COSATU
Subject: COSATU
Date Issued: May 1998
Date: May 1998
Type: text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/109742
Identifier: vital:33185
Description: COSATU rejects with contempt business complaints about the new competition legislation. Business complains that the legislation will too easily trigger the breaking up of large business entities, which abuse their dominance. Business's rejection of a role for ministerial discretion in the regulation of mergers, reveal both an unrepentant arrogance about South Africa's past and a marked misunderstanding of the challenges which our economy faces in the present and future. Throughout the negotiations at NEDLAC, COSATU has argued in line with the commitment made in the Reconstruction and Development Programme that government needs to introduce "strict anti-trust legislation". Competition policy should be informed by the need to break up apartheid era monopolies and concentrations, built up during a time of systematic exclusion and race privilege. COSATU's view is that given this background one of the explicit objectives of the legislation should be the regulation and erosion of inherited corporate power. COSATU supports the fact that the legislation provides for the forced breaking up of conglomerates that abuse their dominant position, for example through charging excessive prices or through limiting output, production or technological development. In fact, we have proposed in the NEDLAC process that these provisions should be strengthened so that in the event of an abuse of dominance forced divestiture should apply unless it is a firm's first offence and there is another appropriate remedy provided for in the Act. Another key issue for COSATU is that, given South Africa's unemployment crisis and as we approach the Presidential Job Summit, it would be important for policy consistency that the proposed competition legislation should include mechanisms to minimise and avoid job losses. In the regulation of mergers by the competition authorities and in the practice of the Minister's discretion in the public interest review the minimisation and avoidance of job loss must be prioritised.
Format: 2 pages
Format: pdf
Publisher: Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
Language: English
Rights: Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
Rights: No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission from the publisher

Hits: 772
Visitors: 856
Downloads: 87

Collections

General materials

		Thumbnail	File	Description	Size	Format
View Details Download			SOURCE1	Cosatu press statement on New competition legislation 21 May 1998.pdf	66 KB	Adobe Acrobat PDF	View Details Download