Search

This article reviews an abuse of dominance decision against the main outsourced ticketing firm in South Africa. The decision of the Competition Tribunal in January 2019 was upheld by the Competition Appeal Court in October 2019. The case clearly illustrates an economics approach to evaluating exclusionary conduct. As this article sets out, the market and contractual environment in which Computicket operated corresponded closely to the assumptions of the economic theory of anti-competitive exclusive dealing. These conditions, taken together, imply that Computicket's exclusive contracts are likely to have led to significant anti-competitive effects in the relevant market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews an abuse of dominance decision against the incumbent do-mestic airline in South Africa (SAA) taken in 2010 and upheld on appeal in 2011. This case placed significant emphasis on the economic impact of the abusive conduct, and it represents a clear example of the adoption of an effects-based approach to assess exclusionary behavior by a dominant firm. As this article sets out, given the features of SAA's conduct and of the relevant market context, it is also possible to identify a coherent economic framework that can explain why SAA's rivals could not profitably match its incentive schemes and were therefore foreclosed. The conceptual issues raised by the SAA case are similar to the ones at stake in the landmark judgments on British Airways. The lessons from this case are therefore relevant to the ongoing antitrust debate on loyalty discounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]