Nigerian Competition Law: FCCPC Publishes Penalty Guidelines

By: Michael-James Currie and Jemma Muller (African Antitrust)

Nigeria is quickly emerging as one of the more important antitrust regimes on the African continent. Not only because it is a significant market, but largely due to a raft of recent legislative developments. The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (“FCCPC”) has been formally established and is fully operational with the legislative tools to tackle and prosecute the traditional spread of competition law violations including restrictive horizontal practices, abuses of market power and conduct robust analysis in relation to its merger control regime.

The most recent publication by the FCCPC is its Administrative Penalties Regulations, 2020 (“Penalty Regulations”). The publication of these Penalty Regulations not only serve as stark reminder of the risks of non-compliance with the competition laws but also signals the start of an active enforcement regime.

The Penalty Regulations provide for a largely mechanical calculation for purposes of quantifying an administrative penalty. In essence, however, the Penalty Regulations provide for a prescribed “base amount” (which is either fixed fee or calculated as a percentage of turnover) and this base amount is increased (or decreased) based on aggravating and mitigating factors as well as taking the duration of the infringement into account.

Importantly, the penalties are calculated with reference to annual turnover. This is not qualified by local or Nigerian derived turnover only. There is a risk that when calculating administrative penalties a firms’ total worldwide turnover is taken into account. This poses a significant risk for foreign entities who might only have a relatively negligible presence in Nigeria but are significant players on the global market…

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