VIDEO: What’s wrong with South Africa’s Competition Law?

Professor Robert Vivian paid a visit to the FMF last week to discuss his concerns about the way competition law is currently being enforced. His main concern is that the entire competition law enforcement process currently occurs outside of the courts system. Competition law "prosecutions" tend to consist of coercing confessions out of company executives and levying massive fines which are then duly paid by the company's shareholders without the matter ever seeing the inside of a courtroom. Professor Vivian argues that this process is tantamount to extortion. Furthermore, he argues that executives who breach competition law should be criminally charged in open court and that the law should then take its course. This, he says, would quickly put a stop to the gross abuses of power currently being practiced by the Competition Commission.