The Kenyan Competition Authority (CAK) has asked for formal guidance from the Kenyan Attorney General (and via his office from COMESA) as to notification requirements of mergers over which national competition authorities used to exercise exclusive or semi-exclusive jurisdiction.

John Oxenham, at Nortons in Johannesburg (South Africa) has said to Global Competition Review that the CCC would inevitably “encounter teething problems. However, it is clear that the landscape in relation to merger notifications across the region has been dramatically reinforced with COMESA coming into operation”.

COMESA member states have the procedural option of requesting a referral-“down” from the COMESA’s CCC (Competition Commission), once they gleaned that a notification has been submitted to the CCC and under circumstances that make it likely that the notified transaction may be harmful to competition within that member state’s market.