Abusing Antitrust Enforcement for Personal Gain? Malawi’s Competition Agency Misled by Textbook Competitor

By Editor (African Antitrust)

As it turns out, some savvy ‘entrepreneurs’ have been able to use competition-law enforcement on the African continent to their personal gain, namely by making misleading — if not outright false — accusations against their competitors, thereby triggering an antitrust investigation, and even causing this venerable publication to report on such.  We have been made aware by the initial “target” company (now, as it turns out, the actual “victim”) of the Malawi investigation that one of its competitors in the textbook market had essentially weaponized the CFTC’s investigative powers by launching direct and indirect accusations against Mallory International that triggered the probe.  In the end, the CFTC concluded that none of the purported cartel conduct actually occurred.

To be clear and to avoid any doubt: Mallory International was cleared of any misconduct allegation.  The Editor has reviewed conclusive evidence of the CFTC’s closure of this investigation in August of 2018.  “What remains to be seen is whether or not the agency might use its powers to pursue the perpetrators of this inherently anti-competitive attack of false accusations (which coincidentally also wasted government resources) any further,” says AAT Editor Andreas Stargard, pointing to the underlying nature of such false claims as “quintessential unfair competition that should neither enjoy immunity from prosecution nor escape government scrutiny.”…

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