Computicket, the ticketing agency owned by Shoprite Group, has agreed to pay an R11.3-million “administrative penalty” to South Africa’s competition regulator, finally settling a years-long battle.

The Competition Tribunal said on Friday that the it has “confirmed as an order” the settlement agreement between Shoprite/Computicket and the Competition Commission, “bringing to an end the protracted litigation between the parties relating to alleged abuse of dominance for their exclusive arrangements with inventory providers regarding outsourced ticket distribution services in the entertainment industry”.

As a result, neither Computicket nor Shoprite will be prosecuted by the Competition Commission over alleged abuse of dominance in the ticketing market. Neither company has admitted guilt.

“The settlement agreement constitutes full and final settlement of all proceedings between the firms and the commission regarding this complaint. In addition, the tribunal’s order renders the settlement agreement legally binding,” the Competition Tribunal said.

Computicket will pay the R11.3-million penalty to the commission, which will, in turn, pay the money into the national revenue fund in line with the requirements of the Competition Act.

Computicket has agreed to develop and implement a competition law compliance programme designed to ensure that its employees, management and directors do not contravene Competition Act, the tribunal said. However, Computicket and Shoprite denied they have contravened the act in the past, as alleged by the commission.

The commission said it agreed to the settlement agreement without securing an admission that there’d been a contravention of the act because:

From October 2019, Computicket had terminated all impugned exclusivity provisions in its outsourced ticket distribution services contracts for events;
The impact of Covid-19 on the travel, events and entertainment sectors and, accordingly, on Computicket’s business;
The lapse of time since the initiation of the investigation, the likely extended trajectory of the litigation, related costs, and risks and the changes in the events sector;
The need to avoid protracted litigation; and
The interests of justice and efficiency that the matter is finalised without further litigation.