The Competition Commission is determined to pursue charges of providing false information against a former Vodacom legal executive, although the charge of perjury has been dropped, says the commission's spokesperson Nandi Mokoena.
Charges were laid by the Competition Commission with the SA Police Service in July 2008, after then Competition Tribunal chairman David Lewis accused the operator of lying to it during the hearings over Vodacom's purchase of Global Telematics, a mobile service provider.
Although the Competition Tribunal approved the merger, it alleged a Vodacom legal executive had lied to it when the network operator was asked to provide minutes of a board meeting in which the issue of Global Telematics was discussed.
The request was first made to Vodacom's legal representatives on 6 March 2008 and the impression, as alleged by the Competition Tribunal, was that no minutes of such a board meeting were kept. However, once pressed, Vodacom did release such minutes four days later.
The employee had left Vodacom's employ before the charges were first laid and ITWeb has been unable to contact her.
“As far as we are concerned, this whole issue has been put to bed. We have not been notified by the Competition Commission of any further developments and the issue took place more than a year ago,” a Vodacom spokesperson says.
Misleading information
In terms of Section 73 of the Competition Act, it is an offense to provide the competition authorities (both the commission and the tribunal) with false or misleading information.
Mokoena says the charge of perjury was dropped because the documents were not necessarily provided under oath.
“However, we believe that it was still a criminal offense in terms of the Act, as the information was either false or misleading,” she says.
Mokoena says the SA Police Service's Commercial Crimes Unit, under the direction of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, was investigating the criminal charges and Vodacom will be notified of the progress of the investigation.
Because of the contents of the minutes, the Competition Tribunal determined the real reason for the acquisition was to eliminate Global Telematics as a competitor due to its aggressive pricing strategy.
In a statement issued a year ago, the Competition Commission (the authority that actually investigates competition cases) said: “The commission believes that the executive committed a criminal offence in that she intentionally provided false information to mislead the commission, in contravention of the Competition Act. The penalty for these offences is a maximum prison sentence of six months, or a fine of R2 000, or both.”
At the time of the tribunal hearings, Lewis complained about the “disrespect” that Vodacom had displayed.
The statement issued last year also said the tribunal stated it believed information was deliberately withheld from the commission.
Related story:
Vodacom exec up for perjury
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