Government seeks a review of the Walmart/Massmart merger approval
22 Jul 2011
The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Economic Development department and the Department of Trade and Industry, have lodged a review application seeking the Competition Appeal Court to review the decision by the Competition Tribunal to approve the Walmart/Massmart merger and to refer the matter back to the Competition Tribunal for reconsideration.
The review application points to serious flaws on the provision of relevant information and documents by the merger parties, in consequence of the curtailment of information that the Competition Tribunal ordered to make available for discovery.
This prevented government from placing before the Tribunal all relevant information that was required for proper consideration by the Competition Tribunal, based on crucial data and documents in the possession of the merging parties; for example on the current level of local procurement and the potential for future imports. This also affected the crafting of appropriate conditions relating to the approval of the merger.
In addition, the timetable for the hearing set by the Competition Tribunal and the scheduling of witness testimony compromised the ability of all parties to properly ventilate their concerns. The departments argue in their papers that this lack of information in turn affected the ability of the Competition Tribunal to properly appreciate the potential damage of the merger and the crafting of appropriate conditions to address such damage.