Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Namibian Competition Commission announced that it has decided to launch an investigation against the law firm Dr. Weder, Kauta & Hoveka Inc, and Bank Windhoek, following the allegations of exclusive dealings relating to the property conveyance services.
This comes after the Commission received a complaint alleging that Dr. Weder, Kauta & Hoveka Inc and Bank Windhoek entered into an Exclusive Service Level Agreement that appointed the law firm as the exclusive and sole conveyancing attorney for properties financed through the bank.
The agreement, the Commission explained, allegedly requires Bank Windhoek property financing applicants to only make use of Dr. Weder, Kauta & Hoveka Inc’s conveyancing services, which means that other conveyancing service providers in the relevant market would be excluded.
“The agreement and its maintained exclusivity is said to limit competition and forecloses other independent service providers in the relevant market, which is provisionally defined as the provision of conveyancing services to Bank Windhoek financed property transactions,” Paulus Hangula, the Commission’s Acting Director and Senior Economist, said.
The Commission further pointed out that the alleged conduct of the law firm is possibly in contravention of a number of sections of the Competition Act, namely Section 23(1) read with Section 23(2)(b) and Section 23(3)(e) and 23(3)(g).
The Commission further explained that the alleged conduct of the bank also violates the aforementioned sections of the Competition Act, and is also in contravention of section 26(1) read with section 26(2)(a), 26(2)(b) and 26(2)(d) of the Competition Act.
The Commission stated that the affected parties have been engaged and afforded an opportunity to respond to the allegations. Once the affected parties respond, an assessment will be conducted to determine the relevant cause of action.
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