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Successful appeal against South African Competition Commission

The South African Competition Tribunal has instructed the Competition Commission to reassess its decision to unconditionally allow the merger between printing company Paarl Media and Primedia@Home, a media distribution firm. The merger was approved in January of this year but the Tribunal has ruled that the Commission "overlooked or did not deal with critical evidence of the potential competitive effects of the merger".

CRA provided economic advice to Caxton & CTP Publishers and Printers, who appealed the decision. The Tribunal agreed with the arguments put forward by Caxton that the Commission had failed in their analysis of the market definition and that the barriers to entry had been incorrectly assessed. The Tribunal's decision in this matter is the first of its kind in South Africa. A CRA team led by Cristina Caffarra in London and Bob Levinson in Washington worked on the matter in support of Caxton.

The Competition Tribunal's decision is available here.

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