The competitors attraction court docket has agreed to listen to arguments in opposition to a Competitors Tribunal choice to dam Vodacom’s acquisition of a 30-40% co-controlling stake in fibre operator Maziv and has set 22-24 July 2025 because the dates for the listening to.
The transfer by the attraction court docket comes regardless that the tribunal has nonetheless not supplied detailed causes for its choice to dam the multibillion-rand deal – months after its deadline to take action handed.
“The events nonetheless await the explanations of the Competitors Tribunal for prohibiting the merger, which up to now the events haven’t but obtained and which is important for the attraction course of to progress as deliberate,” Vodacom Group stated in an announcement to buyers on Friday night.
The events to the transaction have prolonged the lengthy cease date for the deal’s completion a number of instances already, and on Friday stated they’d agreed to increase it as soon as once more – this time to 30 April 2025.
The protracted delays within the supply of an consequence have resulted in uncertainty that has led to a pointy decline in funding in new fibre infrastructure, with the merging events unsure as to the place to deploy capital and the remainder of the market taking a “wait and see” method.
Talking to TechCentral throughout a Remgro outcomes name final September – Remgro has a 57% stake in Maziv mum or dad CIVH – CEO Jannie Durand warned that delays by the competitors authorities had led to R3-billion to R4-billion not being invested within the floor. This might have gone into fibre deployment. Durand described the scenario as a “a chance value not simply to CIVH but additionally to the nation”.
Complexity
The Competitors Tribunal in January cited the complexity of the Vodacom-Maziv transaction as one of many causes the method has taken so lengthy – it’s now been greater than three years for the reason that deal was first introduced – and cited the identical purpose for the delay in furnishing its causes for rejecting the deal.
“Mergers that increase very advanced competitors and public curiosity points, such because the Vodacom-Maziv transaction, take longer to adjudicate. The tribunal should stability the pursuits of employees, homeowners and shoppers to the profit all South Africans, because the Competitors Act enjoins it to do,” stated the tribunal.
Learn: Massive twist in Vodacom, Maziv merger saga
Seemingly complicating issues for the tribunal is that commerce, trade & competitors minister Parks Tau – who has political oversight over South Africa’s competitors regulators – introduced final November that he would attraction the tribunal’s choice to ban the deal.
Tau had participated within the tribunal’s proceedings and had signalled his assist for the transaction on public curiosity grounds. He famous in a media assertion on the time that the deal was blocked that the merging events had dedicated to “substantial public curiosity situations to considerably increase investments and development of fibre and cell connectivity in South Africa” and that this was “consistent with South Africa’s priorities for industrialisation, re-industrialisation and funding to foster financial development and create jobs”. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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