South Africa's competition watchdog has fined 15 construction companies a combined $143 million to settle a long-standing investigation into price-fixing. The Competition Commission said that the companies, including industry leaders Murray & Roberts, Aveng and Wilson Bayly Holmes Ovcon, had agreed to pay penalties totalling 1.46 billion rand ($143 million).
The investigation, first announced in 2011, had weighed heavily on the shares of leading construction companies in Africa's biggest economy, but prices rebounded on Monday, outperforming a 2.4 percent fall in Johannesburg's All-share index.