The Competition Commission should rather promote growth by cutting anti-business regulations and regulatory agencies, the Free Market Foundation (FMF)said yesterday following the release of a recent e-commerce market by the competition body.
It said, instead, the commission had ordered businesses like Takealot to split up, so that sale platforms could be separated from the providers of goods. The commission took issue with Takealot favouring its own products over those of third-parties on the Takealot.com website.
The Free Market Foundation (FMF) said it would write to the commission’s chairperson to note its protest against the commission’s misapplication of the principles that underlay an open and competitive market economy.
FMF legal researcher, Zakhele Mthembu, said, “The e-commerce sector is one of the shining lights of South Africa’s economy. The Competition Commission is punishing this sector for its rapid growth and desire to diversify.
“Instead of looking at obvious barriers like regulations and legislation that make doing business in South Africa very burdensome, the commission obsesses over business advantages that firms acquired voluntarily through market interactions,” Mthembu said.
The “self-preferencing” that companies like Takealot perform was a legitimate exercise of their constitutionally recognised and protected property rights, the FMF said.
“No competitor has a right to market their goods on Takealot’s platform. Takealot offers a voluntary service that has benefited countless buyers and sellers throughout South Africa. It has only been able to do this because it was allowed the necessary freedom of enterprise to be self-directing,” it added.
Interfering in the internal workings of private businesses dis-incentivised the economic growth and dynamism South Africa desperately needed, it said.
BUSINESS REPORT