The Shuttleworth Foundation is intervening in the application for approval of a merger between two major publishing companies that would negatively impact on education in South Africa by reducing the diversity and range of textbooks.
As I’ve blogged below the potential merger raises concerns surrounding the negative impact it would have on the local textbook market in terms of pricing, diversity, relevance, local content and local language availability. As a result we at the Shuttleworth Foundation have chosen to intervene in the application with the intention of preventing the merger from proceeding. The rest of this post is selected excerpts from the official statement.
The initiative is being led by Diane Terblanche, a well known expert on competition law. Papers were lodged with the local competitions authority on Wednesday, 24 July. Following the submission of documents, the Shuttleworth Foundation met with the competitions authority on Thursday, 26 July 2007 to further present the case against this merger.
The Competition Commission has until 13 August 2007 to decide on the merger.
A successful merger would drive greater concentration of an already over-concentrated local publishing industry for educational materials.
The Open Society Institute, dedicated to strengthening democracy, is supporting and co-funding the intervention.
