Cartels as ‘fraud’? Insights from collusion in southern and East Africa in the fertiliser and cement industries

ABSTRACT

Anti-competitive conduct involves firms misrepresenting their behaviour and manipulating markets. In sector case studies of cement and fertiliser, the authors find that collusion in southern and East Africa operated through industry associations exchanging information, secret agreements and lobbying government to distort notionally developmental policies for private benefit. This has occurred in the context of liberalisation and deregulation. Transnational corporations have leveraged control of infrastructure and inputs, and favourable regulations to sustain market power, while presenting themselves as ‘development partners’. Competition law is portrayed as the ‘governance fix’ for these issues but this ignores political economy issues which underpin many collusive arrangements.

RÉSUMÉ

Les comportements anticoncurrentiels impliquent que les entreprises donnent une fausse image de leurs pratiques et manipulent les marchés. Des études de cas dans les secteurs du ciment et des engrais révèlent que la collusion en Afrique australe et orientale a eu lieu par le biais d’associations professionnelles échangeant des informations, ainsi qu’à travers des accords secrets et des pressions sur les gouvernements pour fausser les politiques de développement pour le profit personnel de certains acteurs. Cela s’est produit dans un contexte de libéralisation et de déréglementation. Les sociétés transnationales ont réussi à s’assurer le contrôle des infrastructures et des intrants, ainsi que des régulations favorables, afin de maintenir leur pouvoir de marché tout en se mettant en avant comme des « partenaires de développement ». La loi de la compétition est présentée comme « la solution de gouvernance » pour ces problèmes, mais cette proposition ignore les questions d’économie politique qui sous-tendent de nombreux arrangements collusoires.

KEYWORDS:

• Fraud
• collusion
• cement
• fertiliser
• southern and Eastern Africa
• political economy

MOTS-CLÉS:

• fraude
• collusion
• ciment
• engrais
• Afrique australe et orientale
• économie politique

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Thando Vilakazi is a senior researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), and was previously an economist at the Competition Commission of South Africa. He is a PhD candidate (Economics) at UJ.

Simon Roberts is a professor at the University of Johannesburg in the School of Economics, and is Executive Director of the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development. He was previously Chief Economist at the Competition Commission of South Africa and, in this capacity, he was involved in the competition cases in fertiliser and cement referred to in this article.

Notes

1 Formerly Anglo Alpha Cement and under the global Holcim group until a sale to AfriSam Consortium in 2007.

2 Formerly Blue Circle until it was acquired in 1998 by the French company Lafarge.

3 See http://www.aeci.co.za/aa_history.php.

4 It is also notable that the main ammonium nitrate fertiliser component is co-produced for explosives and, as such, is linked to the apartheid government's priorities in mining as well as to agriculture.

5 http://www.yara.com/about/what_we_do/, accessed April 29, 2016.

6 http://www.dsmcorridor.com/index.php/bulk-lbr-gterminal, accessed May 30, 2016.

7 http://yara.com/about/where_we_operate/tanzania.aspx, accessed May 30, 2016.