Case Prioritisation
Vipin Naugah, Legal Executive
Date: 16 October 2013
ICN Cartel Workshop 2013
Mini Plenary 1
Outline
• Evolving priorities of young competition
agencies
• The Mauritian Experience
COMPETITION COMMISSION OF MAURITIUS
Evolving priorities of young
authorities
• Capacity building
• Advocacy
• instilling a competition culture in the business
community
• Initiate consumers as being the trigger of
competition
– Interaction with sector regulators & Govt
• Complaints
• Dealing with more complex matters
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Prioritisation
Ordinarily, priority setting refers to the possibility of an
agency to deal with those cases which are most harmful
to competition. There are two ways how prioritisation
can be effected:– An agency may have the power to decide to deal only with
those cases which it deems a priority and to set aside those
cases which it does not consider a priority.
– An agency may be able to deal with its cases in order of
priority but ultimately has the obligation to deal with or at
least examine all cases. In the latter case the competition
authority may be able to decide not to investigate on grounds
of lack of priority.
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Competition Commission
of Mauritius
– The CCM employs about 22 employees, of which
12 are investigative staff
– Annual budget of about one million euros
– Mandated to investigate restrictive business
practices- cartels, monopoly abuse and mergers.
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Competition Act 2007
• Section 30 of the Act gives the Executive Director the
power to:
– either on his initiative, or on the complaint of any person,
open an investigation into a suspected breach of the Act.
– undertake general studies on the effectiveness of competition
in individual sectors of the economy in Mauritius
• Section 51(1)
– Where the Executive Director has reasonable grounds to
believe that a restrictive business practice is occurring or
about to occur, he shall investigate, or cause to be investigated,
such restrictive business practice
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Setting priorities
– In considering the priority to give to different
areas of CCM activity, we consider three broad
classes of criteria:
• Impact
• Strategic importance
• Resources
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Procedure adopted
• Issues Register Meeting
– Held every month amongst senior staff to
determine cases to enquire upon or investigate.
– Issues chosen from complaints, or internally
generated issues
–
–
–
–
–
No Further Action (NFA),
Proceed to enquiry (PTE),
Long term hold (LTH),
Medium term hold(MTH),
Short term hold (STH).
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Collusive agreements
(Cartels)
• Overriding priority to cartels
• Like other competition authorities, the CCM
regards deliberate price-fixing as the most
serious offence under competition law.
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Prioritising cartels
• A cartel unit within the CCM
• Capacity building for cartels
• Attendance to workshops such as ICN Cartel
Workshop
• Training in IT Forensics with experts from South
Africa
• Training in Reid Interviewing and Interrogation
Technique
• Leniency Policy
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Ex-officio cartel cases
• Professional Architects Council Rules• The rules prohibited Architects from competing on prices by
means of reduction in prices or other inducements.
• Investigation initiated by the Executive Director under section 41 (
collusive agreements)
• Inv closed after decision was taken by the relevant ministry to
amend the Rules to comply with the Competition Act.
• Commingling of Pools (tote betting)
• Case came in as a merger guidance, but the CCM found that the
commingling agreement contained terms which could infringe the
collusive agreement prohibition provisions of the Competition Act.
• Inv closed after undertakings ( commitments) were given by the
merging parties.
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Cartel investigation in Chicken
industry
– First case where dawn raid was conducted
– Involved substantial financial expenses for IT
forensics conducted by a South African IT
Forensic expert firm.
– High Impact case with strategic importance.
– Case on-going.
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Going forward
– So far we have been more reactive than
proactive
– Defining areas of priority
– Markets which have larger impact on the
society
– Markets that raise the cost of doing business
in Mauritius
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THANK YOU!!
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www.ccm.mu
COMPETITION COMMISSION OF MAURITIUS