Commission wants Naspers acquisition blocked
The Competition Commission says Naspers’s acquisition of local vehicle-purchasing service WeBuyCars should be blocked as it could lead to higher used-car prices.
The commission has recommended to the Competition Tribunal that the deal be ‘prohibited’.
A Business Day report notes a unit of Naspers – which owns the AutoTrader platform and OLX – wants to buy 60% of WeBuyCars.
Naspers announced the deal in September 2018, saying it would invest R1.4bn in the company. While the WeBuyCars deal ‘does not present any competitor overlap in SA’, as the Naspers group is not involved in buying and selling cars, ‘it was found that the Naspers group – through Frontier Car Group – has been anticipating entering the SA market for the wholesale and online buying of used cars in competition with WeBuyCars’, the commission said.
It added another concern is that Naspers owns and operates online automotive advertising platforms, including AutoTrader, which WeBuyCars uses to sell and purchase vehicles.
‘It is the view of the commission that the merged entity will have the ability to leverage its significant AutoTrader position as well as the OLX platform to exclude rivals of WeBuyCars.’
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
