Daily Times reported that pursuant to the show cause notice issued to the Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation Limited by the Competition Commission of Pakistan on April 30th 2009, PSM was allowed an opportunity of being heard to present its point of view on the prima facie allegation that it was refusing to deal with most purchasers of low-carbon steel billets save one.

The hearing was conducted by a 3 member bench of CCP comprising of Chairman Ms Rahat Kaunain Hassan, Member Legal Mr Khalid A Mirza; and Member M&TA Dr Joseph Wilson. Representing PSM were APEO Mr Iftikhar A Javed and Advocate High Court Mr Mazhar Jaffri. Also in attendance were representatives of the complainant Frontier Foundry Limited, Mr Nauman Wazir and Mr Zarak Khan.

The report said that “Given that PSM was the only domestic source of high quality billets, the complainant’s concern was that PSM was not allocating billets in a transparent manner and in the quantity required, despite the ostensible willingness on the part of consumers to pay premium prices for them. PSM’s contention in the hearing was that it was not the only source of billets in Pakistan and its market share for the items in question was a nominal one. Most local demand is met through other sources. Among other questions, the commission inquired from what source the PSM derived its economic power to decide allocations of material to buyers.”

It added that “The commission inquired about the allocations made by PSM during the period December 2008 to April 30th 2009 as most of the relevant information, also known as the notice of readiness was not made available on the PSM’s website as per its established practice and asked the PSM to provide this information at the earliest. To further substantiate their respective point of views, the commission asked the parties to provide information regarding the cancellation of an NOR of the complainant by PSM; the minutes of a meeting in which complainant offered to pay PKR 100,000 premium on every truckload of billets; and information pertaining to the market share of PSM vis-à-vis imports of billets to determine PSM’s contention that it had a nominal market share of billets in Pakistan.”

It was decided by the bench to hold a second hearing in June once information from both the PSM and the complainant substantiating their respective contentions was received. The commission is considering inviting representatives from the industry to benefit from their perspective on the matter.

(Sourced from Daily Times)