Tribunal releases public version of reasons in Vodacom/Maziv merger decision

The Competition Tribunal (“Tribunal”) has today, Tuesday 24 June 2025, published the public version of its Reasons for prohibiting the proposed merger between Vodacom (Pty) Ltd and Maziv (Pty) Ltd.

Confidentiality

South Africa’s Competition Act includes provisions to protect confidential information in competition law cases. A person, when submitting information to the Competition Commission or the Tribunal, may identify information that the person claims to be confidential information. The Competition Act defines “confidential information” as trade, business or industrial information that belongs to a firm, has a particular economic value, and is not generally available to or known by others. Firms involved in mergers and third parties often submit competitively sensitive business information to the competition authorities, for example, pricing information and models, profit margins, trade secrets, contracts and supply terms, and strategic plans or forecasts.

The Tribunal’s practice is to issue its confidential Reasons and parties are then given the opportunity to make confidentiality claims over information contained in the Reasons. The claims received are then assessed by the Tribunal which has adopted a practice around assessing confidential information designed to balance a firm’s right to protect its confidential information with the public’s right of access to information.

Following the issuing of the Tribunal’s confidential Reasons in this matter, various parties submitted confidentiality claims over information contained in the Reasons. These included a large number of confidentiality claims received from, respectively, Vodacom and Maziv. Claims were also received from MTN, Rain and the Competition Commission on behalf of third partes such as Telkom, Frogfoot and others whose information forms part of the record and is mentioned in the confidential Reasons.

The last submissions by Maziv on confidential information was received by the Tribunal on 17 June 2025, and by the Competition Commission on 20 June 2025.

The non-confidential version of the Reasons is now available on the Tribunal’s website: https://www.comptrib.co.za/case-detail/19846

Issued by:

Gillian de Gouveia: Communications Manager

On behalf of the Competition Tribunal of South Africa

Cell: +27 (0) 82 410 1195

Email: GillianD@comptrib.co.za

Website: www.comptrib.co.za

Twitter: @comptrib

LinkedIn: Competition Tribunal of South Africa