AllAfrica.com reports that South African telecom giant MTN is in discussions with Nigeria’s Communications Commission (“NCC”) (again, note that Nigeria doesn’t have a competition law regime) relating to its 44% market share in mobile telephony in the country.

The NCC published its report in PDF format on its web site. The report, entitled “Determination of Dominance in Selected Communications Markets in Nigeria“, states in relevant part:

Nigeria is the fastest growing telecommunications market in Africa, rising from a meagre 500,000 telephone subscribers in 2001 to over 108 million as at December 2012 …

As the news report states, MTN is not accused of any abuse of its market power — that is, the hallmark of a unilateral / dominance case, abuse of dominance, is apparently yet absent from the NCC’s phantom case against the provider. What the NCC is worried about inter alia, however, is the preferential treatment given to MTN’s own customers and calls amongst that group. That’s interesting, because many providers across the world have similar “in-network” call rates (indeed, often even free allowances for in-network calls) without triggering antitrust review. The NCC does not perceive dominance issues in fixed voice or mobile data market segments. Rather than relying on the investigated operators’ submissions (proposing, among other things, to use a simple Herfindahl-Hirschman Index determination to see if the market segments were ‘concerntrated’), the NCC’s report lays out quite nicely how it used a “Structure‐Conduct‐Performance (SCP) model”.

The SCP model postulates that the structure of a market determines to large extent the conduct of the participants in the market, which in turn, influences the performance of the firms within the market with respect to profitability and efficiency.

We’ll see where this one goes. Perhaps it simply serves to reinforce our prior question: Is it not time for Nigeria to have its own, proper competition-law regime?