Competing Interests Of Trade Competitors: A Delicate Balance

Competition is the backbone to any thriving economy. It promotes innovation through new entrants, motivates better quality goods and services, and results in favourable price points for consumers. Entrenched in the Constitution, on the one hand, is the right to property and on the other hand, the right to freedom of trade. But what happens when the conduct of one competitor, in exercising its constitutional right of freedom to trade, affects another competitor's constitutional right to property?

In the recent Discovery / Liberty case(Discovery Ltd and Others v Liberty Group Ltd (21362/2019) [2020] ZAGPJHC 67 (15 April 2020)) Judge RM Keightley was tasked with deciding on a number of legal issues between Liberty and various companies belonging to the Discovery group, including issues of alleged unlawful competition (on the basis that Liberty was using Discovery Vitality's "Vitality status system" for its own commercial purposes).