Uber Eats, Apple, Wimpy, and Steers fighting Competition Commission crackdown

E-commerce companies, including Uber Eats, are challenging the Competition Commission’s ruling that prohibits exclusive agreements with suppliers and restaurants, according to a Sunday Times report.

This comes after the Competition Commission’s market inquiry report, which found that dominant players in the space had arrangements with certain providers. It described the practice as being anti-competitive.

However, Uber and other companies like Private Property, Booking.com, Apple, and Famous Brands — which owns Steers, Debonairs, Wimpy and Mythos — are challenging the findings.

Uber claims that the commission made its ruling without conducting a “fact-based” assessment of the impact it would have.

It accused the watchdog of not considering that Uber Eats “faces material competitive constraints from alternative modes of delivery and suppliers in adjacent categories”.

Uber described the ruling as “so vague” that it isn’t clear what a company must do to comply.

The Competition Commission also said that restaurants and suppliers’ practice of favouring major players due to the incentives they offer amounts to anti-competitive behaviour.

“The stance adopted by the restaurant chains is in part the result of the two leading platforms incentivising them to bring in more of their restaurants and to drive order volumes through their platforms,” it said in its report.

Famous Brands is challenging this part of the ruling. It said the commission failed to identify any specific market that was “adversely impacted” by such a policy.

Competition Commission spokesperson Siyabulela Makunga told the Sunday Times that the commission is engaging with the parties to resolve the issues amicably.

Bolt Food’s demise in South Africa came as the result of anti-competitive behaviour in the food delivery space, the company previously told MyBroadband.

It said dominant players’ exclusive arrangements with restaurants prohibited them from delivering to customers through other food delivery services.

Bolt launched its food delivery service in South Africa, beginning with Cape Town, in April 2020.

It expanded the service to Johannesburg after reaching 800 restaurants in the mother city. Its following target cities were Pretoria and Durban, the plans for which it announced in October 2021.

Shortly afterwards, Bolt announced its plans to expand Bolt Food to all 23 cities and towns where its ride-hailing service was operating, intending to become competitive with Mr D Food and Uber Eats.

The company shut down its food delivery service on 8 December 2023, about a month after announcing its plans to do so.

Andrew Ihsaan Gasnolar, head of public policy at Bolt, said the company will now focus on its short-trip and last-mile parcel delivery services.

He said it will also introduce electric bike and scooter offerings to its platform.