The tribunal heard evidence at the end of 2010 and the beginning of last year on the activities of the cartel, including the fixing of prices, rigging tenders and dividing markets, that started in 1969 and continued until 2007.
The role Michelle Harding, former MD of Petzetakis Africa, played in breaking the cartel was commended by the tribunal in its ruling. She invited several cartel members to a breakfast meeting in 2007 and told them that Petzetakis and its subsidiaries would no longer participate in any collusive activities.
Harding secured an 80% discount for Petzetakis, resulting in a penalty of almost R10m for its involvement in the cartel. "It is important to signal to the business community that the public disavowal of cartel arrangements will not go unrecognised when it comes to the imposition of a sanction," the tribunal said.
Harding at the time testified that being a member of a cartel was time-consuming as it required a lot of time to plan and execute secret operations.
"Enforcement against cartels requires more Hardings who are willing to take a moral stand and, as she put it in her testimony, 'stop the cancer'," the tribunal said.
The tribunal yesterday dismissed the case against Gazelle Plastics and Gazelle Engineering, which claimed at the hearings that they had been in a financial corner and had no other option but to beg cartel members for help, but imposed a penalty of R2m on MacNeil Agencies and R11m on Amitech SA.
Although the tribunal found that Andrag had indeed contravened the Competition Act, it imposed no penalty on it.
Source: Business Day
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