By Stephany Torres

The Competition Commission (Commission) has referred SA Airlink, a privately owned regional feeder airline, to the Competition Tribunal (Tribunal) for prosecution on charges of excessive and predatory pricing in relation to a specified domestic route in South Africa (Johannesburg-Mthatha).  The Commission was prompted to investigate the matter after receiving complaints lodged by Khwezi Tiya‚ Fly Blue Crane and the OR Tambo District Chamber of Business between 2015 and 2017.

The Commission found SA Airlink to be dominant in the market for the provision of flights on the Johannesburg-Mthatha route and further found that SA Airlink contravened the Competition Act by abusing this dominance from September 2012 to August 2016 by charging excessive prices on the route to the detriment of consumers in contravention of Section 8(a) of the Competition Act no 89 of 1998 (“the Competition Act”).  The Competition Act defines an “excessive price” as a price for a good or service “which bears no reasonable relation to the economic value of that good or service and is higher than the value referred to in 8(a)”.

An additional requirement which the Commission will need to demonstrate in order to succeed with an excessive pricing complaint is that the “excessive pricing” was to the detriment of consumers.  In this regard the Commission found that consumers would have saved between R89 million and R108 million had SA Airlink not priced excessively on this route.  Furthermore, lower prices would also have resulted in more passengers traveling by air on the route‚ possibly contributing to the local economy of Mthatha.

The Commission also found SA Airlink to have engaged in predatory pricing to exclude a competitor from the market in contravention of section 8(c) and Section 8(d)(iv) of the Competition Act. In this regard, the Commission alleges that prior to Fly Blue Crane entering the market, SA Airlink had charged excessive prices. When Fly Blue Crane entered the route, SA Airlink allegedly reduced its prices below its average variable costs and average avoidable costs for some of its flights and then subsequently, after Fly Blue Crane stooped flying the relevant route, SA Airlink reverted to their alleged excessive prices.

The Commission went further to say that the effect of the predation is also likely to deter future competition on this route from other airlines which would also be to the detriment of consumers.

The Competition Act provides for an administrative penalty of up to 10% of SA Airlink’s annual turnover for contravention of Section 8. The Commission stated that “it will seek the maximum administrative penalty before the Tribunal”.

In addition‚ the Commission has asked the Tribunal “to determine other appropriate remedies in order to correct the conduct“.

Michael-James Currie, a competition lawyer, notes that “in addition to the potential administrative liability, should SA Airlink be found by the Tribunal to have abused its dominance, SA Airlink may also face civil damages claims similar to those which Nationwide and Commair successfully instituted against South African Airways (SAA) following the Tribunal’s decision that SAA had engaged in abuse of dominance conduct”.

John Oxenham, a director of Primerio and editor of the recently published book “Class Action Litigation in South Africa”, states that “this case may potentially also result in class action litigation if the Commission is correct in its quantification of the harm caused to consumers”.

The Competition Commission’s case against Airlink comes at an interesting juncture in light of the recently published Competition Amendment Bill. Andreas Stargard, also a director at Primerio notes that the underlying motivation for the proposed amendments to the abuse of dominance provisions is to assist the Commission in prosecuting dominant firms (by placing the onus on a dominant firm to demonstrate that its conduct is pro-competitive). The case against Airlink, however, will be decided in terms of the current regime as the Amendment Bill has not yet been brought into effect.

For further information and insight into excessive pricing and predatory pricing cases in South Africa, AAT has previously published papers on the Competition Appeal Court’s decision in Sasol (the seminal excessive pricing case in South Africa) and the Media 24 cases (the first successfully prosecuted case based on a predation theory of harm).