Communications and broadcasting

Genesis Analytics has been retained by ICASA to assist with their Priority Market Study to identify telecommunications key markets that are not characterised by effective competition and may require regulatory intervention to ensure that the goals of the National Development Plan can be met.

Genesis was retained by Media24, a large newspaper and magazine publisher, to defend predatory pricing allegations made against the group by the Competition Commission in what has proven to be South Africa’s seminal predation case.

‘Termination rates’ are the prices telecommunications operators pay each other to terminate calls originating on each other’s networks (for example, when an MTN customer calls a Vodacom customer, MTN pays a termination fee to Vodacom). For a variety of pro-competitive reasons, regulators around the world set these rates equal to the costs operators incur to provide termination services to each other.

Genesis was asked by a pan-African television and media company to design a more inclusive supply-chain strategy. This request came at a time of major disruption in the TV industry: entry of new competitors like Netflix, new platforms like internet and mobile TV, new technology like AI, and rapidly changing consumer habits.

Genesis provided an independent assessment of the appropriate damages quantum following the repudiation of an agreement between two large South African companies in the communications sector. The analysis was performed on behalf of the defendant in a claim that exceeded R1-billion.

Genesis was specifically selected by the Competition Commission of South Africa to provide expert reports and testimony in the prosecution of a series of abuse of dominance cases brought against the fixed-line incumbent, Telkom.

Genesis was retained to assess the effects of the proposed move from joint to sole control of the Natal Witness publishing group by Media24, which had evoked substantial opposition from other media groups involved in community newspaper publishing. 

Genesis was contracted by the Competition Commission of South Africa as expert economic advisers in the assessment of a proposed merger between Vodacom South Africa, the largest mobile network operator in the country, and Neotel, the country’s second national fixed-line operator.

Further to work Genesis had done in developing ICASA's 2014 termination rate regulations, the firm was commissioned to play a central role in defending those regulations against a subsequent High Court challenge.