Multinational company Phibro Animal Heath have succeeded in an interdict application preventing Animate Animal Health and its owner, Hugo Hattingh, and Phibro’s country manager Johannes Groenewald, from continuing with allegedly unlawful, anti-competitive practices. Groenewald helped Hattingh set up Animate and was allegedly promised 50% of the business in exchange for assistance, which took the form of offering access to Phibro intellectual capital and the use of Phibro internal employees and resources.
Phibro holds the trademark and is the sole distributor in SA of medicated feeds TM 100 and TM 200. In 2005 Animate began distributing and marketing the direct replacement products TMQ and TMQ 200. To get details of the active ingredient found in the TM product range for Animate, Groenewald used Phibro’s suppliers to access the product, and intellectual capital to design the packaging. He also encouraged customers to purchase Animate’s product instead.
According to the interdict, Animate Animal Health has been forbidden from approaching or communicating with Phibro’s customers or selling or distributing products that are sold or distributed by Phibro or its agents for one year – effective from 2 November 2007. Animate has also been interdicted from selling TMQ or its replacement products to Phibro’s customers for a year.
Pfizer’s Group Manager of Veterinarian services, Chris van Dijk, said the isolated case would not discourage multinational companies from investing in SA. “Most have reforms in place to discourage anti-competitive practices,” he said. – David Steynberg
