The South African Competition Commission's merger decisions for FY2002 through FY2009 are analyzed to empirically identify the factors historically influencing prohibition, conditional approval and unconditional approval. The key explanatory variables are linked to provisions of the 1998...

The uncovering of several cartels and exclusionary practices by the Commission in the food and agro-processing sector has shown that the liberalization of the sector in 1996 did not necessarily increase competition and bring the benefits to consumers envisaged at the time. This paper draws on...