Sasol will pay more than R250-million in fines after the Competition Tribunal on Wednesday confirmed a settlement order in which the gas and chemicals giant admitted to cartel conduct in two fertiliser cases.
This is what some of the players had to say at the tribunal on Wednesday:
David Lewis, Competition Tribunal chairperson
“My question is, why it is so difficult to comply with the competition regulation requirements — Sasol is a serial offender on this. It is by now a matter of public knowledge.”
“What is it in the culture of this organisation that makes senior employees knowingly engage in behavior that the management would not agree with?”
“What personal interests do they have? Because it would appear to me that the only beneficiaries are the shareholders.”
“Is it something in the remuneration structure that incentivises this kind of behaviour?”
Pat Davies, Sasol chief executive
“They [senior employees] also do it because they can get away with it … And they do it for personal financial gain … to earn a bonus or two.”
“I realise an apology cannot right a wrong — but members of the general public should see that the Sasol of today is not the Sasol of the past … We are committed to fair business practice —”
“Sasol is here today to agree that it has contravened the Competition Act … We are here to explain how it was not detected earlier and how we are going to stop it recurring in the future.”
“We accept full responsibility and apologise to all our stakeholders”
“This is a low point in the whole history of Sasol.”
“We would not knowingly and willingly get involved in collusion conduct — we were not aware that the committees were involved in collusion conduct.”
Norman Manoim, Competition Tribunal panel
“We can’t say conclusively that the [collusion] conduct has ceased — it has been exposed but we don’t know that it has ceased.”
Johannes Mosia, Congress of South African Trade Unions
“It is becoming clear that it was a serious mistake to privatise Sasol and this is why we are calling for it to be renationalised”.
“This collusive practice might have resulted in jobs being lost in the agricultural sector.”
“Many emerging farmers might have been thrown out of business due to this greedy, cruel and inhumane behaviour of companies in the fertiliser industry.”
Chris van Zyl, Transvaal Agricultural Union
“While Sasol has been fined R250-million, it should be borne in mind that the state becomes the beneficiary of the fine and that those who were initially victimised by the original transgression are not compensated in any way.”