Frogfoot, Vox ordered to - subject to a confidentiality regime - give Vodacom, BVI access to information claimed as confidential and referred to by the Commission in its recommendation prohibiting the Vodacom/BVI merger
 

The Competition Tribunal (“Tribunal”) has ordered Frogfoot Networks (Pty) Ltd (“Frogfoot”) and Vox Telecommunications (Pty) Ltd (“Vox”), respectively, subject to a confidentiality regime, to provide Vodacom (Pty) Ltd (“Vodacom”) and Business Venture Investments No 2213 (Pty) Ltd (“BVI”) with access to information claimed as confidential which they supplied to the Competition Commission (“Commission”) during its investigation into the proposed Vodacom and BVI merger, as explained below. This means that only the external legal representatives and independent economic experts (“independent advisors”) of the merger parties will receive access to relevant documents - subject to them providing appropriate, signed confidentiality undertakings.
 
In August 2023 the Commission, which investigates proposed large merger transactions and refers such to the Tribunal for adjudication, recommended to the Tribunal that the proposed merger should be prohibited. During its investigation into the merger, the Commission received submissions from various third parties including Frogfoot and Vox.
 
Vodacom and BVI on Wednesday applied to the Tribunal for access to all submissions, documents and data provided to the Commission by Frogfoot and Vox during the merger investigation. Frogfoot and Vox opposed the applications.
 
In terms of the Tribunal’s orders, issued today, both Frogfoot and Vox must provide Vodacom and BVI’s independent advisors with all the information contained in, referred to or relied upon in the Commission’s merger report, which they had claimed as confidential, barring the information contained in one paragraph of the Commission’s report relating to Vox and a letter submitted by Vox to the Commission. The Tribunal’s orders further set out a limited access regime relating to any other information claimed as confidential by Vox and Frogfoot and that does not fall within the abovementioned category.