After the successful launch (and by now, first decade) of its Eastern regional counterpart, the COMESA Competition Commission, as of today, West Africa’s ECOWAS body likewise boasts a supra-national antitrust enforcement regime. AAT will be following its path closely. By Jannes van der Merwe The Economic Community of West Africa States (“ECOWAS”) was established by ..read more

Senior diplomats from the COMESA region gathered in Livingstone, Zambia, for the fourth in a series of diplomatic antitrust-focused conferences that began in 2016 but were halted due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2019. At today’s formal resumption of the recurring event, Dr. Willard Mwemba, CEO of the COMESA Competition Commission, introduced the conference session ..read more

Meet the “CCCC”: the 4th Estate Covers the 4th “C” of the COMESA Competition Commission During its Second Press Conference, and More The second annual COMESA Competition Commission press conference, taking place in Livingstone, Zambia, revealed not only news, but also the extensive improvements to the agency being made, and information about ongoing market studies ..read more

Nigeria’s FCCPC has imposed a U.S. $220m fine on WhatsApp’s parent company Meta for violating data privacy laws, continuing the FCCPC’s consumer-protection streak When it rains, it pours. And when the nascent FCCPC (on whose relatively youthful existence we have reported extensively) issues a fine on a global mega corporation like META (or BAT to the tune of $110m), then it really reaches deep into its pockets: Mr. Zuckerberg’s conglomerate will have to pay $220m to resolve an extensively-documented violation abusing its dominant position, exploiting Nigerian WhatsApp users’ personal data, whi ..read more

A Primerio-sponsored webinar recently put the spotlight on Nigeria’s burgeoning FCCPC On 10 July 2024, advisors from pan-African law firm Primerio continued their “African Antitrust Agencies – in Conversation with Primerio” series with the Nigerian Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (“FCCPC”) in the first of two sessions aimed at a quick snapshot of the most noteworthy enforcement, legislative, and policy developments.  This first session focused on merger control.  Primerio’s Michael-James Currie, Competition Law Partner at Primerio (Johannesburg) was joined by ..read more

Not only did the Malawian government revise its competition 26 year-old competition law, but it effectively repealed the old statutory regime under the “Competition and Fair Trading Act” and has now enacted its replacement, the “Competition and Fair Trading Act of 2024.” Says Andreas Stargard, who practices competition law with Primerio Intl., “the new regime had been in the works for several years, with input from the broader international and pan-African competition communities, both private and academic, as well as from fellow antitrust enforcers across the globe. We are pleased to see this ..read more

By Megan Friday On Sunday, 30 June 2024, President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa announced South Africa’s new cabinet under the newly-formed Government of National Unity (‘GNU’).  The Government of National Unity is “a government that brings together a number of rival leaders and political parties in order to promote national unity and political stability” (Cheeseman, N., Bertrand, E., and Husaini, S. (2019). A Dictionary of African Politics, Oxford University Press). The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s main opposition party, is generally considered to be more business friendly tha ..read more

Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, yesterday appointed Mr. Tunji Bello to become the new Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice-Chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (“FCCPC”), subject to review and a vote by the Senate, which is expected to pass without issue. Observers are noting the relative lack of competition-law / antitrust experience of Mr. Bello (whose prior credentials include State Secretary and Environment Commissioner, both in Lagos State). Mr. Bello, a former journalist, is an unknown to most, if not all, competition-law practitioners. His Wikip ..read more

By Joshua Eveleigh On 03 June 2024, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (“DTIC”) published the draft Vertical Restraints Regulations (“Draft Regulations”) with the intention of providing a non-exhaustive list of factors to assist in determining whether a restrictive vertical practice, contravenes section 5 of the Competition Act, 89 of 1998 (“Competition Act”). The current framing of section 5(1) of the Competition Act is broadly framed in that: “An agreement between parties in a vertical relationship is prohibited if it has the effect of substantially preventing or lessening com ..read more

AAT discusses how the Kenyan antitrust watchdog, CAK, is seeking input on its recently released draft amendments By Joshua Eveleigh On 28 May 2024, the Competition Authority of Kenya (“CAK”) published a request for public comment on its ‘Draft Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2024’ (the “Amendment Bill”). The Amendment Bill seeks, most notably, to broaden the scope of the Competition Act to include ‘digital activities’ and to replace the recently included ‘abuse of buyer power’ prohibition with an ‘abuse of superior bargaining position. Digital Activities The Amendment Bill defines ‘digital activ ..read more