Altech's apology to the Competition Tribunal has been described by chairman Dave Lewis as being “partial” and the body is considering its next steps.
Lewis reacted strongly yesterday to a Sunday Times article in which Altech chairman Craig Venter was quoted expressing his strong dissatisfaction with the process of the sale of Verizon's South African operations to cellular network operator MTN.
In the article, Venter pointed out that the J&J Group (which has former telecommunications minister Jay Naidoo as a director) is the black economic empowerment shareholder in both Verizon SA and the merchant bank handling the transaction, Macquarie.
Altech withdrew from the hearing into the merger a day before it was supposed to commence, even though the competition authorities had set aside five days for the electronic group's participation.
But what really seems to have got the Competition Tribunal's goat is Venter's quote saying: “It is also unfortunate that one of the panel members that adjudicate on the tribunal panel is an ex-MTN executive.”
This person is Yasmin Carrim, who was MTN's executive for legal affairs, a position she left five years ago to join the Competition Tribunal.
This drew an angry response from Lewis, who - in a letter to Altech - demanded that Venter, “...retract this unwarranted and scurrilous inference of bias on the part of the tribunal.”
Altech's lawyers replied in a letter that Venter retracts the word “unfortunate” and that no inference of any kind was meant.
“It was certainly not my client's intention to defame or make any unwarranted or scurrilous statements regarding Ms Carrim or the tribunal.”
The Competitions Act makes it an offence to defame the tribunal or its members.
Lewis says that the letter is a “typical lawyers' letter in that it states that they hadn't 'intended', but that they do not concede that they were wrong. So we are considering our position and I am waiting for Ms Carrim to return to the office.”
An Altech spokesperson says that Venter will not be making any further comments on the issue for the time being.
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