The Competition Commission is seeking advice on whether to appeal a Pretoria High Court ruling preventing it from referring a Telkom dispute to the Competition Tribunal.<\/p>\n
The dispute brought by the South African Vans Association (Sava) in 2004 reportedly charges that Telkom abused its market dominance by refusing to supply them with its facilities unless they met its conditions. <\/p>\n
Telkom argued that the Competition Tribunal had no competence to rule on the matter and that jurisdiction rested rather with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).<\/p>\n
In a statement issued on Friday, the Competition Commission said it had briefly reviewed the high court judgment and had noted that the court did not rule on the question of jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
"The Commission is therefore able to continue investigating the 11 complaints related to the telecommunications sector currently before it and will refer these matters in due course," it said.<\/p>\n
It refuted the court’s ruling that it had adopted a view demonstrating bias against Telkom and that its referral of the complaint to the Competition Tribunal be reviewed on this basis.<\/p>\n
"… the Commission reviews copious materials in its investigations to draw its own conclusions, as was the case in this matter.<\/p>\n
"We remain unmoved by the suggestion that by sharing some of the views of the research centre consulting to us necessarily constituted bias."<\/p>\n
The commission said the court had also found it was out of time in its referral, but said it was under the impression that this had been accommodated by what it believed to be all the complainants.<\/p>\n