DLA Piper represents Vexall in abuse of dominance proceeding

DLA Piper has successfully represented Vexall in a recent abuse of dominance proceeding in the South African Competition Tribunal (Tribunal) against Business Connection (BCX). This resulted in the Tribunal imposing interim measures on BCX preventing it from making its pharmaceutical software product available to pharmacies on condition that pharmacies also purchase a range of value added services from BCX, while the South African Competition Commission conducts an abuse of dominance probe.

Vexall approached the Tribunal following a letter by BCX to pharmacies notifying them that BCX would no longer provide any updates and upgrades to the pharmaceutical software product, unless pharmacies also purchase a range of value added services from BCX. The software is used by a significant number of pharmacies in South Africa to dispense medicine and the capability of the software to dispense medicine is severely comprised if pharmacies are not able to receive regular updates and upgrades from BCX.

The Tribunal approved Vexall’s application for an interdict and ordered its rival BCX to stop the licensing of its software on condition that customers (pharmacies) also purchase value added services from BCX. Vexall argued that the bundling of BCX’s software product with its value added services prevented Vexall from competing against BCX in providing its own value added services to pharmacies.

The DLA Piper team comprised of Janine Simpson (director), Werner Rysbergen (director) and Caleb Kipa (associate).