The competition appeal court has agreed to hear arguments against a Competition Tribunal decision to block Vodacom’s acquisition of a 30-40% co-controlling stake in fibre operator Maziv and has set 22-24 July 2025 as the dates for the hearing.
The move by the appeal court comes even though the tribunal has still not provided detailed reasons for its decision to block the multibillion-rand deal – months after its deadline to do so passed.
“The parties still await the reasons of the Competition Tribunal for prohibiting the merger, which to date the parties have not yet received and which is necessary for the appeal process to progress as planned,” Vodacom Group said in a statement to investors on Friday evening.
The parties to the transaction have extended the long stop date for the deal’s completion several times already, and on Friday said they’d agreed to extend it once again – this time to 30 April 2025.
The protracted delays in the delivery of an outcome have resulted in uncertainty that has led to a sharp decline in investment in new fibre infrastructure, with the merging parties uncertain as to where to deploy capital and the rest of the market taking a “wait and see” approach.
Speaking to TechCentral during a Remgro results call last September – Remgro has a 57% stake in Maziv parent CIVH – CEO Jannie Durand warned that delays by the competition authorities had led to R3-billion to R4-billion not being invested in the ground. This could have gone into fibre deployment. Durand described the situation as a “an opportunity cost not just to CIVH but also to the country”.
Complexity
The Competition Tribunal in January cited the complexity of the Vodacom-Maziv transaction as one of the reasons the process has taken so long – it’s now been more than three years since the deal was first announced – and cited the same reason for the delay in furnishing its reasons for rejecting the deal.
“Mergers that raise very complex competition and public interest issues, such as the Vodacom-Maziv transaction, take longer to adjudicate. The tribunal must balance the interests of workers, owners and consumers to the benefit all South Africans, as the Competition Act enjoins it to do,” said the tribunal.
Read: Big twist in Vodacom, Maziv merger saga
Likely complicating matters for the tribunal is that trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau – who has political oversight over South Africa’s competition regulators – announced last November that he would appeal the tribunal’s decision to prohibit the deal.
Tau had participated in the tribunal’s proceedings and had signalled his support for the transaction on public interest grounds. He noted in a media statement at the time that the deal was blocked that the merging parties had committed to “substantial public interest conditions to significantly boost investments and growth of fibre and mobile connectivity in South Africa” and that this was “in line with South Africa’s priorities for industrialisation, re-industrialisation and investment to foster economic growth and create jobs”. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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