Expert testimony stops price fixing in soda ash mining

Genesis was commissioned to provide expert testimony and a report in a landmark competition case in the mining sector.

Botswana Ash had brought a cartel complaint against the American Natural Soda Ash Corporation (ANSAC), a cartel of American soda ash producers who had successfully opposed similar legal challenges in other countries. The organisation’s purpose was to fix prices for the export of soda ash to South Africa and a number of other countries.

The project team’s testimony and report was pivotal in the eventual settlement reached by ANSAC with the Competition Commission and its admission to a Section 4 (cartel behaviour) offence in terms of the Competition Act.

Since ANSAC's exit from the market, the key prediction of the analysis that individual members of the cartel would sell into South Africa individually in the absence of ANSAC has proven correct.