After more than three-and-a-half years of regulatory wrangling, Vodacom South Africa has finally been given the green light to acquire a co-controlling stake in fibre operator Maziv, TechCentral has learnt.
Maziv, which owns Vumatel and Dark Fibre Africa, will now get billions of rand in new capital flowing into its coffers that will allow it to speed up the roll-out of fibre services across South Africa, including into townships – a stated objective.
Maziv chairman Pieter Uys told TechCentral on Thursday that the appeal court had approved the transaction but said that the company was still awaiting details before commenting further.
The competition appeal court on Thursday gave its consent to the deal after the Competition Commission changed tack, initially recommending that the deal be blocked by the Competition Tribunal, and then recommending recently its approval after the merging parties agreed to further changes aimed at lessening the negative impact on competition in the fibre market.
The tribunal had agreed with the commission’s earlier position regarding the deal, and decided to block it. That prompted the merging parties to approach the competition appeal court for relief.
The commission’s about-turn presented a unique situatation to the appeal court as it had never happened before in South Africa that a case was heard before the court without the commission arguing a counterfactual to the merger parties’ arguments.
‘Unique situation’
“We are faced with a unique situation that in 306 pages you tell me how wrong the tribunal was but I have absolutely nothing from the commission to tell me why you are wrong,” said appeal court judge president Norman Manoim, referring to Vodacom and Maziv.
Beyond the issue of no counterargument, the merger parties and the commission made a separate agreement with each other after the hearing at the tribunal. This left the appeal court confused as to whether it should assess the original deal blocked by the tribunal, or the new deal between the merger parties and the commission.
Speaking for the merger parties, Maziv legal counsel Jerome Wilson told the court that the so called “new deal” and its stipulations should only be viewed as sweeteners to the original agreement, which the merger parties argued was not correctly assessed by the tribunal in the first place.
Vodacom and Maziv argued that the tribunal erred in its rationale for blocking the deal. They also accused the regulator of having a biased view that led to the cherry-picking of data to support its preconceived notions.
Read: Vodacom fibre play pushes Maziv valuation above Telkom’s
The merger parties said the tribunal sourced data from documents without considering the full context given in those sources, which included testimonies by Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub and a variety of reports submitted by the merger parties. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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