COMPETITION ACT: EXPORT PROMOTION BLOCK EXEMPTION GAZETTED, IN FORCE

COMPETITION ACT: EXPORT PROMOTION BLOCK EXEMPTION GAZETTED, IN FORCE

• 12 December 2025
• Trade, Industry & Competition
• SA Legal Academy

The Department of Trade, Industry & Competition has gazetted a notice announcing the immediate commencement of a five-year block exemption under the 1998 Competition Act with the intention of:

• mitigating ‘the economic impact of global trade tariff changes’, and
• contributing towards ‘the resilience and growth of South African exports’.

To that end, the notice lists the context in which certain co-ordinating practices and activities are permitted. Their purpose should be to:

• achieve economies of scale and efficiencies with the aim of improving competitiveness
• jointly finance the necessary infrastructure locally, in transit and at the point of destination
• share or offset:
  • landed costs, and
  • freight, storage, inspection, insurance and other logistics costs in the export markets
• fund the collection and sharing of export market-related information, including:
  • import regulations
  • aggregated pricing, and
  • aggregated volumes
• facilitate collective marketing ‘as a brand’
• jointly negotiate specifications and standards-related protocols in the export markets, and to
• facilitate joint negotiating or contracting with buyers in the export markets should that be required by the governments concerned.

The exemption notice also covers:

• excluded practices
• the procedures to be followed by:
  • any enterprise wishing to apply to the Competition Commission for a practice/activity-related exemption
  • the Commission itself (including revoking an exemption)
• historically disadvantage person and small, micro and medium enterprise participation, and
• monitoring and reporting.

The exemption was released in draft form in August 2025 for public comments, as SA Legal Academy reported at the time.

• block exemption notice

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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