Aon Insurance Wins Case Against Competition Commission

August 8 - When Aon South Africa acquired Glenrand MIB, it had to get final permission from the country's Competition Commission before the deal could be finalised.

The Commission put restrictions on Aon South African regarding the retrenchment of staff which the insurance giant believed to be unreasonable.  As a result, Aon decided to turn to the Competition Tribunal in a bid to appeal the restrictions.

This week, the tribunal ruled in favour of Aon and accepted the insurance group's proposal.

As such, the new restrictions are as follows:

• Aon will not retrench any staff who earn below R15,000.
• The number of employees who earn between R15,000 and R30,000 to be retrenched will be capped to 24 - for a two year period.

This week, the Competition Commission was not present at the hearing, although it did rejoin at the end in order to present its argument.

Unreasonable Restrictions

The Chief Executive Officer of Aon South Africa, Anton Roux, said that the ruling by the Competition Tribunal was a clear indication that the Competition Commission's restrictions placed on Aon several months ago, were unreasonable.

"While we are pleased with the ruling, it is extremely unfortunate that this matter could not be settled with the Competition Commission earlier so that we could provide clarity to our employees and clients," said Roux.

"We are still committed to redeploying employees within the business wherever possible and to minimising any potential job losses. We have already significantly reduced the number of potential job losses from the 220 initially proposed following the acquisition, down to 66."

Roux said that Aon South Africa was acutely aware of the current economic environment and impact of job losses and "remain committed to minimising the impact of the merger on our employees."