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There’s a special sort of contempt for those who took advantage of the pandemic, and the panic in those first few weeks, to hike the prices of the PPE that everyone needed (and needs) to stay safe.

Many of those companies would come to regret their decisions after people calmed down, got wise, and started doing price comparisons.

Back in April, Dis-Chem was outed for alleged price inflation, sparking an investigation by the Competition Commission.

The pharmaceutical company was alleged to have charged excessive prices on essential goods like masks, adding as much as a 200% markup on some products.

The commission said that the inflated prices of hygiene goods and essential items, like surgical face masks, was detrimental to customers who can’t afford to stock up on pricier items. It went on to implore the Competition Tribunal to impose the maximum penalty against the company.

Of course, Dis-Chem announced that it intended to oppose the decision to refer its case to the Tribunal.

Let’s head on over to BusinessTech to see how that worked out for them.

The Competition Tribunal has found pharmacy and health retail group Dis-Chem guilty of charging excessive prices for surgical face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Well, that didn’t go to plan.

The Tribunal considered a range of factors before making a decision, including the economic context in which Dis-Chem hiked prices (on three occasions), alongside the current state of the country as the pandemic continues to spread.

In its order and reasons, the Tribunal found that Dis-Chem contravened section 8(1)(a) of the Competition Act in that it charged an excessive price for three types of surgical face masks (SFM 50, SFM 5 and Folio50) to the detriment of consumers during March 2020.

Despite the fact that the first case of COVID-19 in South Africa was only reported on March 5, and the national lockdown implemented on March 15, global supply chains had been disrupted as the virus spread in other parts of the world.

Fear of infection, according to the Tribunal, had already taken hold and was affecting consumer behaviour as early as January.

Dis-Chem failed to prove that its price hikes were reasonable and will have to pay a R1,2 million fine.

[source:businesstech]