Sidestepping HCI may tread on many toes

Let’s face it, few of us like the bother — and often expense — of having to adhere to rules and regulations.

In 1999, when the new Competition Act was launched, you could hear the collective groan of the business community when it suddenly realised how much restriction and regulation it faced. But, after a few tough years, it learnt to deal with the new regulatory environment.

Hosken Consolidated Investments’ (HCI’s) efforts to sidestep the competition authorities could undo all of that learning.

In what looks like a case of “opinion shopping”, it has gone to the top of the decision tree to get the opinion it had hoped the Competition Commission and then the Competition Tribunal would provide, but didn’t.

HCI believes the approval it received for taking control of Tsogo in 2014 means it is free to rearrange assets between Tsogo and Niveus, which it also controls, and that it does not need to go back to the competition authorities.

Not so fast, says the commission. The approval granted in 2014 was for a different transaction and did not involve restructuring of businesses, which potentially has publicinterest implications.

If the Competition Appeal Court grants the order sought by HCI, it could drastically diminish the commission’s authority to oversee mergers.

The case could also see HCI, which sourced much of its original funding as an empowerment vehicle from the South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union, pitted against Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, who oversees the competition authorities.

Patel has pushed hard on the interrogation of public-interest issues in mergers and was a major force in the union for decades before being appointed to the Cabinet in 2009.

The Joburg Indaba, a mining conference, looks to be a repeat of its smaller peer, the Junior Indaba at which the same people are talking to the same people and no one from the government is listening.

The Junior Indaba earlier in 2017 was notable for the cry for help from smaller companies that went completely unheard by anyone from the Department of Mineral Resources or the state. It appears the same may be the case for participants who will largely find themselves talking among themselves again on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Joburg Indaba is an intense two days of discussions, veering away from the dull corporate presentations that have marked the Cape Town Mining Indaba and it engages with the issues of the day, with chairman Bernard Swanepoel not afraid to ask presenters and delegates tough questions and pushing for answers.

The format for 2017 is a few keynote speeches dotted inbetween group discussions on the stage. A notable presence will be Zweli Mkhize, who is a presidential contender in the ANC’s year-end conference, but as the party’s treasurer, he is not the one to call the shots on mining policy. DA leader Mmusi Maimane will speak directly after Mkhize, but again he is hardly the one to gallop to South African mining’s rescue.

It’s a good conference, with interesting speakers, many of whom have spoken at the event in previous years, but unless Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane, who is attending the Tuesday night gala dinner, reads newspapers and websites and follows tweets coming from the event, it will all again be for naught.