Key African Antitrust Highlights of 2019 and What to Keep Tabs on for 2020

By Editor, African Antitrust

The level of antitrust enforcement across Africa has increased markedly over the past decade and with more jurisdictions coming on stream and establishing competition law regimes, the role of antitrust laws and the risk of non-compliance is becoming more pronounced than ever before.

Pan-African competition lawyer, Michael-James Currie, says that the role and applicable standards relating to competition law enforcement in developing countries is more divergent from those established in the more developed jurisdictions. A one-size fits all approach to competition law compliance is becoming less feasible – particularly as the role of public interest or non-traditional competition law factors are increasingly being taken into account in competition policy and legislation.

Likewise, the thresholds for establishing “dominance” is generally lower across many of the African jurisdictions than those generally utilised in the United States or Europe and firms’ therefore need to be mindful that the traditional assessments of welfare (whether it is total welfare or consumer welfare) is not necessarily the benchmark.

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