The Competition Tribunal has issued an order instructing SA Breweries (SAB) to set aside a portion of its BEE scheme’s top-up benefits for former employees, pending the outcome of the final determination of a Competition Commission investigation.

A Cape Times report says this follows an application for urgent interim relief by Coca Cola Beverages SA (CCBSA), which claimed that conditions of the merger – whereby the Coca Cola Company bought SABMiller shares held in Coca Cola Beverage Africa (CCBA) – had been breached.

Former SABMiller employees that were transferred to CCBSA as a result of that merger continued to remain beneficiaries under the SAB Zenzele Employment Trust through a condition imposed by the tribunal.

These employees have now been excluded in top-up benefits allocated by SAB. It is these top-up allocations that have become the subject of the dispute, the tribunal said.

At the time of the merger, CCBA was a subsidiary of the SABMiller Group. As a result of the merger, SABMiller employees were transferred to CCBSA.

‘As part of their employment with SAB, these employees were beneficiaries of the Zenzele Employment Trust under the umbrella of the Zenzele scheme, SABMiller’s broad-based BEE programme. During the merger hearings, SABMiller undertook that these former employees would continue to benefit from the Zenzele scheme as if the merger never happened. The undertaking became a merger condition imposed by the tribunal,’ the tribunal explained.

Full Cape Times report (subscription needed)