President Ruto has removed Shaka Kariuki as Non-Executive Chairperson of the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) early, instead installing Charles W. Mahinda in the role, effective December 11, 2025.
The appointment was made under Section 10(1)(a) of the Competition Act and Section 51(1) of the Interpretation and General Provisions Act and will last three (3) years.
Mr. David Kibet Kemei, by now an established face for the competition watchdog, will continue to be the Director-General of the agency.
Throughout November 2025, ERCA has examined and approved four merger transactions in Liberia. Liberia is a Member State of the Economic Community of West African States (“ECOWAS”), which was established in 1975 when the Heads of State and Heads of Government of fifteen Western African Countries signed the ECOWAS Treaty. As of 29 January 2025, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger officially withdrew from ECOWAS. The current Member States of ECOWAS include Benin, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sénégal, and Togo; the headquarters of ECOWAS is in Abuja, Nigeria. The aim of ECOWAS is to promote cooperation and integration among Member States in order to raise the standard of living, maintain economic stability, foster relations, and contribute to the development of Africa.
Article 26(3)(a) ECOWAS Treaty sets out the priority sectors of the economy of Member States which include Food and Agriculture Industries, Building and Constructions Industries, Metallurgical Industries, Mechanics Industries, Electrical, Electronic and Computers Industries, Pharmaceutical, Chemical and Petrochemical Industries, Forestry Industries, Energy Industries, Textile and Leather Industries and the Transport and Communications Industries
In each of these sectors, there are mergers and acquisitions that take place, which are regulated by the ECOWAS Regional Competition Authority (“ERCA”). ERCAS merger control regime became operational on 1 October 2024, and for any merger and acquisition that takes place, a notification must be submitted to ERCA for prior authorisation (See: Regulation C/REG.23/12/21). The four recent merger approvals centred around the following priority sectors: Mechanics Industries, Food and Agriculture Industries, as well as one of the Treaty’s aims, which is to ensure harmonisation in terms of education. The decisions have been made as follows:
On 19 August 2025, TML CV Holdings Ltd (“TMLCVH”), a company incorporated in Singapore, notified ERCA of its intention to acquire 100% of the shares issued in Iveco Group N.V., excluding its Defence Business Unit. The proposed merger would result in the full integration of both TMLCVH and Iveco Group N.V. commercial vehicles and powertrain divisions under the control of Tata Motors Limited. They are formally known as TML Commercial Vehicles Limited. The relevant market definition in this decision is the “global design, production and distribution of commercial vehicles (trucks and buses), as well as the supply of engines and related components to end customers and third-party manufacturers (OEMs).” The ERCA Council concluded that the merger is unlikely to reduce competition and the acquisition is authorised unconditionally, effective from 3 November 2025.
On 29 August 2025, Toyota Tshusho Manufacturing Ghana Co. Limited (“TTMG”) and Toyota Ghana Limited Company (“TGLC”) notified ERCA of TTMG’s intention to acquire the distribution business, assets, and operations of TGLC. The relevant market definition includes “new passenger cars, commercial vehicles such as buses and trucks, and the spare parts and after-sale services.” The ERCA Council concluded that the merger is unlikely to reduce competition and it promotes local industrialisation and regional trade integration. Additionally, it provides benefits to consumers as the service standards have been improved. The ERCA Council authorised this acquisition as unconditional. Despite the overlap in segments, the combined market share remains below the dominance threshold (Article 11 of the ERCA Manual on Market Dominance Thresholds). The authorisation of this acquisition is effective from 4 November 2025.
On 4 September 2025, SA BidCo notified ERCA of its intention to acquire 100% of the share capital of Honoris Holding Limited (“HHL”). After the merger, SA BidCo will be jointly controlled by an entity of the Old Mutual Group, OMPE SPV, as well as Mangro Holdings Proprietary Limited. This merger furthermore forms part of a broader restructuring and investment initiative led by Old Mutual Private Equity. The relevant market definition in this decision related to the “provision of private higher (tertiary) education services, including foundation-level preparatory programmes”. The ERCA Council concluded that the merger is unlikely to reduce competition and is expected to improve capacity, attract investment, and enhance the quality of education in Nigeria. The acquisition of HHL was authorised as unconditional and effective as from 6 November 2025.
On 12 September 2025, African Bottling Group ABG Limited notified ERCA of its intention to acquire 98.07% of the share capital of Sierra Leone Brewery Limited (“SLBL”). This share capital was previously held by Heineken International B. The aim of this acquisition is to integrate SLBL’s brewing operations and distribution network into ABG’s beverage operations across the ECOWAS Member States. The relevant market definition in this decision is the “production and distribution of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages”. In this instance, this includes beer, other alcoholic beverages including beer, malt-based non-alcoholic beverages and carbonated soft drinks, juices or energy drinks. The ERCA Council concluded that the merger may lead to enhanced production efficiency, quality, and provide potential benefits to consumers. This merger is unlikely to reduce competition, however, it may moderately impact competition in Sierra Leone negatively. It is possible for this impact to be mitigated through appropriate remedies and therefore the Council concluded that the merger be authorised, subject to certain conditions, and is effective from 6 November 2025.
These four merger approvals highlight the Executive Directorate and Councils’ continuous effort to clear the docket before the end of 2025. In addition, the ERCA Council took this opportunity to visit Liberia’s Minister for Commerce and Industry to follow up on the progress of Liberia’s new Competition and Consumer Protection Bill. AAT looks forward to seeing developments and merger approvals made by the ERCA Council in 2026.
The South African National Consumer Commission (“NCC”) recently confirmed its investigation into Shein and Temu regarding certain of the e-commerce giants’ operations in the nation. The NCC’s inquiry will assess whether Temu and Shein are complying with the Consumer Protection Act (“CPA”), with a specific focus on their marketing practices; the safety and quality of products sold; and the accuracy and fairness of their digital-market representations.
Prudence Moilwa, the NCC’s executive head, emphasised that the NCC will undertake a rigorous assessment of their compliance with the CPA, sending a clear message to the e-commerce industry that the NCC will enforce accountability.
The CPA is a strong legislative framework; however, it is increasingly tested by the rapid technological developments that shape e-commerce business models. As innovation progresses faster than regulation, the CPA’s effectiveness is limited in addressing modern consumer protection concerns. The NCC’s intention is not to discourage innovation; however, notes that innovation is expected to take place within the lawful framework.
Additionally, the NCC has expressed growing concern about Temu’s and Shein’s use of algorithms to drive consumer engagement, particularly in relation to South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act. The key issue is the extent to which users are adequately informed about how their data is processed and whether they meaningfully consent to such use. These concerns also relate to the platforms’ data-mining practices and the use of automated systems to determine what consumers see, interact with, and ultimately purchase. In effect, the algorithms employed by these platforms enable highly targeted marketing, which may undermine consumer choice and preference.
Overall, the investigation is a call from the NCC for the e-commerce world to practice basic transparency.
This latest action by the NCC follows closely on the South African Competition Commission (“SACC)’s separate enforcement measures related to tax compliance by Temu and Shein, which focused on alleged under-declaration of customs duties and improper import-tax structures. Together, the two investigations suggest a coordinated tightening of oversight over foreign e-commerce operators entering the South African market at scale.
GovChat is a civic-tech platform, launched in 2018, that allows South Africans to use WhatsApp to communicate with government departments, apply for grants and report municipal service breakdowns. Conflict arose in 2020 when Meta (the parent company of WhatsApp) attempted to off-load GovChat from WhatsApp, claiming violations of its data and user-protection policies. In 2022, the matter was referred to the Competition Commission, in which GovChat claimed that Meta was engaging in an abuse of dominance. The Competition Commission ruled in favour of GovChat and ordered an interim interdict to stop the proposed off-loading of the platform.
The latest interlocutory hearing at the Competition Tribunal (the “Competition Tribunal Hearing”) began on 1 December 2025, in which Meta was ordered to clarify its e-discovery process. Technology-Assisted Review (TAR) is an innovative AI tool which Meta uses in its e-discoveryprocess. Although the Competition Tribunal did not reject this tool, they demanded human-led transparency. The focus is on who defined the scope of the search, how custodians were selected and whether the process has been adequately documented. Meta complied with the Competition Tribunals request, however, GovChat argued that unless Meta discloses their entire e-discovery process, there is no reliable way to verify that all relevant documentation has been produced. The ruling was adjourned, and Meta has been required to file a comprehensive affidavit of the entire e-discovery process.
On day 2 of the Competition Tribunal Hearing, the focus was on disputes concerning discovery, the need for transparency and the extent to which a dormant company can provide. Meta’s legal representatives argued that GovChat did not fully produce all their documents during discovery and questioned whether their efforts were reasonable. GovChat stated that they are essentially a dormant company, which exists only on the books, but has no assets or documents, and that they have gone beyond the standard requirements of discovery. GovChat argued in response that certain documents could not be produced due to only certain custodians being contacted, and their emails could not be produced due to their email repository being deleted after non-payment. They further highlighted a foundational legal principle in that a sworn discovery affidavit is accepted as true unless deliberate dishonesty has been provided and, therefore, their explanation of the discovery documents must be accepted by the Tribunal. Capital Appreciation (“CA”) is the primary financer for GovChat and Meta had issued summons against CA’s CEO. GovChat argued that the summons was defective in that it does not comply with the procedural requirements and they maintained their position that they had already provided the necessary documents.
The proceedings are still ongoing, and the Tribunal has yet to rule on the discovery and summons application. As the proceedings resume, the Tribunal decisions will not only determine whether the evidence will be admissible but will also reshape how South African Competition Law will treat evidence from Big Tech companies. For civic-tech platforms, the developments will reinforce that access to public digital services such as GovChat should not be determined by a corporate decision.
Kenya’s Competition Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) has upheld the Competition Authority of Kenya’s (the “CAK”) steelcartel decision, dismissing individual appeals brought by seven manufacturers and affirming the penalties and remedies imposed in 2023. The Tribunal rejected appeals by Tononoka Rolling Mills, Blue Nile Wire Products, Devki Steel Mills, Accurate Steel Mills, Nail & Steel Products, Corrugated Sheets and Jumbo Steel Mills, cementing the CAK’s finding of price-fixing, coordinated price adjustments and output/ import restrictions in the steel value chain.
This ruling was handed down in two tranches: on 9 July 2025 (Accurate, Blue Nile, Devki, Nail & Steel, Tononoka) and on 11 September 2025 (Corrugated Sheets, Jumbo Steel), each time siding with the Authority. In total, the Tribunal affirmed KES 287.9 million in penalties for the seven appellants. The Tribunal further held that the CAK had afforded the parties due administrative process under Article 47 of the Constitution, the Fair Administrative Action Act and the Competition Act.
The decision handed dawn on 15 October 2025 is a natural sequel to the CAK’s 23 August 2023 decision, when the CAK imposed record penalties of KES 338.8 million on nine steel producers for a cartel that, per the CAK, distorted construction-input pricing. Five firms reached settlements with the CAK, while the seven above pursued and have now lost their appeals.
Notably, during the appeal phase Doshi & Company (Hardware) Ltd and Brollo Kenya Ltd concluded out-of-court settlements with the CAK, illustrating the CAK’s willingness to resolve matters via settlement and compliance undertakings, even mid-litigation.
For context, the AfricanAntitrust 2023 coverage highlighted that the CAK’s original fines constituted the highest cartel penalties in the CAK’s history to that date, following a twoyear investigation that drew on search-and-seizure and market-intelligence evidence. With the Tribunal now endorsing the CAK’s analysis and process, the core liability findings stand, and the fine levels (for the seven appealing firms) are confirmed.
Why this matters:
i) The Tribunal’s decisions strengthen precedent on price-fixing/ output restrictions in Kenya’s construction-inputs sector and validate CAK’s investigative toolkit and evidence assessment.
ii) Appellants remain bound to cease collusion and implement internal competition-law compliance programmes.
iii) The CAK links steel-cartel conduct to higher housing and infrastructure costs, this outcome supports the CAK’sbroader enforcement narrative across the building materials market
The breakdown of the KES 287,934,697.83 penalties, as concurred by the Tribunal are as follows:
Corrugated Sheets (86,979,378.53); Tononoka Rolling Mills (62,715,074.03); Devki Steel Mills (KES 46,296,001.25); Jumbo Steel Mills (KES 33,140,459.40); Accurate Steel Mills (KES 26,826,344.31); Nail & Steel Products (KES22,816,546.01); Blue Nile Wire Products (KES9,160,894.30).
What’s next
Unless pursued further on points of law, the Tribunal’s decision bring this enforcement chapter close to closure. Penalties, compliance obligations remain, and CAK’s leniency and Informant Reward Schemes continue to beckon for future cartel detection.
In conclusion, and by quoting the CAK’s Director-General, Mr. David Kemei, “The Tribunal’s findings affirm the CAK’s unwavering commitment to protect Kenyan consumers and businesses from the damaging effects of cartel conduct, and the veracity and completeness of our evidence-gathering, analysis and decision-making processes.”
In South Africa, exemptions under the Competition Act 89 of 1998 (“the Act”) provide a critical mechanism for firms to engage in conduct that might otherwise breach the Act’s prohibitions, where such conduct supports broader policy goals. Exemptions are considered under section 10, with block exemptions specifically authorised under section 10(10). These exemptions aim to promote efficiencies, support government policy, safeguard employment, or advance small businesses and historically disadvantaged individuals.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a visible evolution in the types and objectives of exemptions granted by the South African Competition Commission (“SACC”), reflecting South Africa’s shifting economic priorities and ongoing structural challenges.
From Pandemic Emergency to Structural Interventions
The COVID-19 pandemic saw the SACC issue urgent exemptions, such as those for private healthcare providers, banks, retail landlords, and hospitality businesses to enable crisis cooperation. These exemptions were time-bound, tightly monitored, and have since expired. They remain useful precedent for how competition law can be flexibly applied in national emergencies.
However, more recent exemptions illustrate a pivot towards structural or developmental goals. Notable recent examples include:
Ports and Rail Exemption (May 2025)
This exemption directly tackles one of the most significant drags on the South African economy, its dysfunctional logistics system. Chronic inefficiencies at Transnet-owned ports and on the freight rail network have cost the economy billions in lost export revenue. This isn’t merely about allowing cooperation, it’s an explicit attempt to use competition law to solve a market failure.
The exemption encourages private terminal operators (such as those in Durban and Ngqura) and private rail operators to collaborate in ways that would normally be considered anti-competitive (such as coordinating schedules, sharing infrastructure planning data, jointly investing in solutions) to optimise the entire supply chain from mine and factory to port.
This means exporters in sectors like mining and agriculture can anticipate reduced delays and owner spoilage rates, enhancing their global competitiveness. For the operators themselves, it allows for unprecedented cooperation with competitors to optimise the entire supply chain, though they must vigilantly avoid any discussion that veer into product pricing or market allocation, which remain strictly illegal.[1]
Sugar Industry Exemption (May 2025)
Functioning as a structured rescue plan formalised through the Sugar Master Plan, this exemption is designed to ensure the survival and transformation of a critically important industry. It permits stakeholders across the value chain, from lager growers to millers, to coordinate on production levels, collectively plan for diversification into biofuels, and present a unified front in negotiations.
For sugar businesses, this means a chance to stabilise the industry and protect livelihoods, particularly for small-scale cane farmers. The practical compliance imperative is stringent, participants must meticulously document that all coordinated activities are for industry restructuring and not for illicit profit-maximisation at the expense of consumers.[2]
SMME Block Exemption (January 2025)
This block exemption is a powerful tool for levelling the playing field for Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises (“SMMEs”). It recognises that these players often cannot challenge established market structures alone and allows them to band together to achieve scale.
This means SMMEs can legally form buying groups to negotiate bulk purchase discounts, create joint ventures to bid for large tenders, and collaborate on shared logistics and marketing networks to drastically reduce costs. For larger corporations, this necessitates preparedness to engage with more organised and powerful SMME consortiums. The critical compliance rule is that the exemption only protects qualifying SMMEs, larger firms cannot use an SMME partner as a shield for cartel conduct.[3]
Energy and Industrial Exemptions
These exemptions represent a critical tool for addressing broad-based economic constraints, with a particular focus on the ongoing energy crisis and its ripple effects. They provide a collaborative framework for firms within key supply chains and strategic industrial sectors to coordinate in ways that would normally be prohibited.
This could mean manufacturers and suppliers in a critical industry such as steel, chemicals, or automative components being permitted to collaborate on optimising energy usage during load-shedding, sharing logistics for essential inputs, or jointly securing raw materials to ensure continued production and prevent factory closures.
For businesses, this exemption is designed to enhance economic stability and prevent a decline in productive capacity by allowing a degree of crisis management and operational coordination that safeguards entire value chains vital to South Africa’s industrial policy and recovery. The essential compliance imperative is that any cooperation must be directly linked to overcoming the identified supply chain or energy constraints and must not be used as a cover for market division, price-fixing, or other blatantly anti-competitive conduct.[4]
Banking and Insurance Exemption (July 2025)
This is a forward-looking exemption that aligns competition policy with national climate goals, acknowledging that financing a ‘just transition’ is a collective action problem. It permits banks and insurers to collaborate on developing common standards, definitions, and data-sharing frameworks for sustainable finance.
This means financial institutions can pool data on climate-related risks and develop a common South African taxonomy for ‘green’ assets without fear of prosecution, which should lead to more available and affordable financing for businesses seeking loans for renewable energy or ESG projects. The crucial limitation is that collaboration is restricted to framework development, any coordination on interest rates, premiums, or customer allocation remains absolutely prohibited.
Draft Block Exemption for the Promotion of Exports (August 2025)
In August 2025, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition published a Draft Block Exemption for the Promotion of Exports. This exemption, still under consultation, seeks to facilitate collaboration among exporters and industry players to overcome structural barriers to accessing foreign markets. It is framed under section 10(10) of the Act and recognises that South Africa’s export competitiveness is often constrained by high logistics costs, fragmented industry structures, and limited bargaining power in international markets.
The exemption is intended to permit cooperative initiatives around joint marketing, shared logistics, standard-setting, and market development, provided that such conduct demonstrably enhances South Africa’s export performance without undermining domestic competition. If finalised, this exemption could become a key instrument to support government’s broader trade and industrial policy agenda, including the drive to increase manufactured exports and deepen regional trade integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (“AfCFTA”).[5]
Understanding Block Exemptions under Section 10(10)
Section 10 of the Act allows firms to apply to the SACC to exempt them from horizontal agreements typically regulated by section 4 of the Act, or vertical agreements regulated by section 5 of the Act where the agreement contributes towards the following objectives:
maintenance or promotion of exports;
promotion of effective entry, participation in or expansion in the market by small and medium enterprises or firms owned by historically disadvantaged persons;
change in productive capacity necessary to stop decline in an industry;
economic development, growth, transformation or stability of any regulated industry; or
competition and efficiency gains that promote employment or industrial expansion.
The recent SMME Block Exemption echoes earlier block exemptions issued during COVID-19 but represents a shift towards more enduring tools that facilitate inclusive growth. Other possible future candidates for block exemptions include sectors under Master Plans, such as poultry, automotive, and steel, where coordinated action may be needed to meet transformation or industrial policy targets.
Evolving Patterns: Then and Now
While COVID-era exemptions demonstrated the SACC’s agility during crisis management, current exemptions highlight a maturing approach. The SACC increasingly uses exemptions to:
Tackle persistent structural inefficiencies;
Strengthen value chains aligned with industrial policy;
Support small and historically disadvantaged firms; and
Balance economic competitiveness with sustainability and localisation goals.
Risks and Compliance Imperatives
Nonetheless, exemptions remain the exception, not the rule. Historic concerns persist that exemptions, if poorly designed or inadequately monitored, may entrench collusive behaviour or dampen competition. The SACC’s use of clear conditions, sunset clauses, and robust reporting obligations is therefore critical.
Looking Ahead
South Africa’s competition law framework continues to evolve in response to new economic realities. For firms seeking exemptions, the message is clear: any coordination must demonstrably advance the public interest and remain tightly circumscribed within the legal safeguards of the Act.
With the recent wave of block exemptions and sector-specific approvals, businesses, advisors, and stakeholders should actively monitor exemption trends, sector-specific conditions, and the SACC’s enforcement approach ensuring that collaboration serves national priorities without eroding competitive markets in the long term.
On 18 August 2025, pan-African competition-law boutique firm Primerio continued its “African Antitrust Agencies – In Conversation” series, casting a light on the Tanzanian Fair Competition Commission (“FCC”) in a dynamic exchange which analysed merger control practices, regional competition enforcement and regulatory reform. The discussion featured Director of Research, Mergers, and Advocacy at the FCC, Zaytun Kikula, in conversation with Primerio Director, Andreas Stargard, Primerio Associate Tyla Lee Coertzen, and Advocate at Mwebesa Law Group, Monalisa Mushobozi. You can watch a recording of this session here.
Ms. Kikula highlighted that the FCC’s focus has thus far mainly been on mergers, as well as investigating the dominance of abuse and cartels. She also points out that the FCC have been very active in its merger control regime, handling between 50 and 70 filings annually. Most of the notified transactions are smaller, spanning across sectors from telecommunication, finance, manufacturing, mining and insurance. Ms. Kikula stated that the recent amendments made to the Fair Competition Act 2024, have created a shift in merger reviews. Before these changes, the focus was only market share, whereas now mergers are being evaluated through a broader lens.
Monalisa noted an amendment to the Act now allows for a merger to be approved even it is strengthens the position of a dominant firm, provided the transaction yields a demonstratable public interest benefit. Ms. Kikula further explained that while the FCC has not received a transaction which triggers the above-mentioned amendment, notified transactions are subject to a 14-day notice period which invites commentary in order to ensure that the concerns of the public are adequately considered.
The FCC has encountered numerous instances of unnotified mergers, some voluntarily disclosing these transactions to the FCC, after the fact and others through investigation by the FCC. The FCC engages with these firms and lets them know that if they do not notify the Commission and proceed, this will constitute an offence which is punishable by a fine of between 5% and 10% annual turnover. Ms. Kikula mentioned the FCC assumes the role of a business facilitator and encourages settlements where the firms pay a filing fee as well as an additional settlement fee for instances of non-compliance. Filing fees are determined by the structure of the transaction, for instance, when dealing with a global entity the fees are calculated based on global turnover. When the transaction is domestic fees are calculated based on local turnover. She also pointed out the fact that this fee calculation is unconditionally governed by law and that there is no room for negotiation.
Monalisa mentioned that the law stipulates that the Commission has 60 days to approve the merger and inquired whether there have been cases where this timeframe has been shortened or extended. Ms. Kikula explained that non-complex merger reviews can extend between 30 to 45 days, however, in some cases can extend to 90 days. Noting that it may go up to 135 days, the statutory maximum. With regards to remedies, the FCC typically imposes behavioural conditions which are tailored to the specific sector involved.
The regional integration of competition law across Africa was a key theme which was highlighted. Andreas brought to the listeners attention that the East African Community Competition Authority (“EACC”) will be coming online in November of this year and will be open to receiving merger notifications. She further expressed that dual filings should be avoided in order to lessen confusion, emphasising the importance of confidentiality under a Memorandum of Understanding in order to protect information. Ms. Kikula discussed the two upcoming regulatory reforms which the FCC is in the process of introducing, with the first being a leniency program and the second being specific regulation for the assessment of dominance. She further noted that the threshold for market share has increased from 35% to 40%. This expansive discussion highlights the FCC’s ability to balance application with facilitation, making it a driving force in East African competition law.
The Competition Commission of South Africa (“the Commission”) released a Cost-of-Living Report (“The Report”) on 4 September 2025, setting out a structured, data-driven assessment of affordability pressures faced by South African households, with particular focus on those low-income consumers predominantly impacted by consistently high inflation rates. Its aim is to provide insights into the affordability of basic goods and services so that individuals, households, businesses, and policymakers can assess financial capacity and understand how price movements affect living standards. This is in alignment with the Presidency’s Strategic Plan that identifies tackling the high cost of living as a priority.
The current cost-of-living crisis is framed against entrenched domestic challenges, rising food, fuel and electricity prices against the backdrop of an ongoing energy crisis and interest rate increases that have lifted debt servicing costs in an environment where growth in household income has maintained the same pace.
Background and Goal of the COL Report
The COL Report stems from the Commission’s earlier Essential Food Price Monitoring(“EFPM”) programme, first published in July 2020 to track the prices of staple foods across the value chain, from farm to retail, and to analyse price transmission between producers, processors and retailers. Recognising shifting expenditure patterns and growing inequality, the Commission has expanded the scope of the EFPM, rebranding it as the COL Report. The new format retains essential food price monitoring while including those key non-food items that have a significant impact on lower income households.
As James Hodge, the chief economist at the Commission said:
“This analysis plays a crucial role in identifying the economic pressures various socio-economic groups, particularly low-income households, experience in a time of fluctuating prices and growing inequality.”[1]
The COL Report’s overarching intent is to highlight the affordability of basic goods and services in South Africa and to identify the underlying drivers of the cost-of-living crisis.
The COL Report tracks non-food necessities (e.g., electricity, water, rentals, healthcare, minibus taxi fares and petrol, funeral policies, public school fees, and internet usage costs) alongside essential food items such as pilchards, eggs, IQF chicken, brown bread, sunflower oil, maize meal. It further illustrates interest-rate effects by comparing owner’s rent as an equivalent to bond repayments on a standard mortgage. This structured monitoring enables the Commission to highlight where inflation is concentrated, where pricing appears sticky during cost reductions, and where spreads are widening.
COL Report and South African competition law
While the COL Report does not draw conclusions in respect of anticompetitive conduct, it does have notable implications for competition oversight by continuing to apply the Consumer’s International Early-Warning System (“Early-Warning System”) and evidentiary baseline for price transmission across essential value chains.[2] Several features are salient for competition law practice and policy, as drawn directly from the Report’s findings and methodology:
A broadened monitoring mandate across non-food essentials, expands the EFPM’s food focus to include electricity, water, rentals, transport, primary healthcare, funeral policies, education, and internet costs, the Commission positions itself to trackpersistent inflation drivers where administered pricing or sectoral structures may entrench affordability constraints. Assisting in the prioritisation and policy engagement across markets that shape consumer welfare, even where formal competition enforcement is not immediately implicated.
It presents clear analytical boundaries that respect competition law standards. It expressly cautions that the analysis of spreads (aggregate spread between retail and producer prices) is not an inference of anticompetitive conduct. Instead, spreads are diagnostic of price transmission and places in the chain where margins are expanding. The Commission’s reliance on the Early-Warning System underscores that the COL Report is an intelligence and monitoring tool, useful for triage and prioritisation, rather than a determinative finding of collusion or abuse. This delineation aligns with competition law’s evidentiary requirements while still highlighting areas that may merit closer scrutiny.
The Report identifies pricing patterns relevant to oversight, documenting patterns in essential staples where input costs fell or stabilised, but retail prices remained elevated. An example of this is, for instance, the discussion of eggs, sunflower oil, and maize meal, where price stickiness and widening retail margins are observed at various points. In brown bread, producer-level margins rose as wheat prices declined, and retail margins fluctuated as retailers alternated between absorbing and passing through cost movements. Such documented patterns inform areas where the Commission may, in being consistent with its mandate, monitor for potential strategic pricing behaviour over time.
The contextualisation of administered prices as structural inflation drivers, by the Report identifies evidence that electricity prices rose 68% and water prices rose 50% over the last 5 years. This is well above headline inflation and provides a policy context for sustained consumer-facing cost pressure. Although administered tariffs are not set through ordinary market dynamics, persistent increases affect downstream markets and household welfare, which are central concerns of the Commission’s broader public-interest and competition policy ecosystem.
The Report recalls that, following the Commission’s Data Services Market Inquiry in 2019, mobile data prices fell significantly in 2020 and 2021 and have remained comparatively stable. This illustrates how evidence-based monitoring and market inquiries can produce effective outcomes, a tool that the Commission may use in other sectors flagged by the COL Report.
The Report uses an interest rate lens to complement the Consumer Price Index (“CPI”) measures of housing costs, by comparing bond repayments (up 28% over the period 2022 to March 2025) with owner’s equivalent rent, shows how debt-servicing costs meaningfully diverge from CPI’s treatment of owner-occupied housing. This perspective assists competition authorities and policymakers to understand consumer budget constraints that can interact with the market.
Collectively, these features show that the COL Report is intended to guide monitoring and policy dialogue, highlight potential risk zones, without asserting contraventions and maintain an evidentiary base for any future work within the Commission’s statutory toolkit such as market inquiries.
Key Findings Highlighted in the Report
To ground the above effects in the Report’s data, the COL Report records the following notable movements over the past 5 years for the period of 2020 to March 2025:
Key non-food items:
Administered prices: Electricity up 68% and water up 50%, both outpacing headline inflation.[3]
Rentals: Actual rentals for houses and flats up 12%, well below headline inflation (28%).[4]
Primary healthcare (General Practitioners): Cumulative increase 33%, with the latest 6.6% annual rise noted against slowing general inflation.[5]
Transport: Minibus taxi fares increased sharply in mid-2022 following the petrol price spike; fares have been “sticky downwards”, though subsequent increases have trailed CPI, narrowing the gap.[6]
Funeral policies: Up 9% over the period, significantly below headline inflation.
Public education: Primary +37% and secondary +42%, both above headline inflation. [7]
Internet usage costs: Wireless +1%; wired +14%, with a notable step-up in 2022 linked to certain higher priced fibre offerings.[8]
Interest rates vs CPI housing proxy: Bond repayments +28% versus more moderate owner’s equivalent rent growth, illustrating the load from higher interest rates on household budgets.[9]
Essential foods:
Pilchards: Retail margins declined over time; early 2025 spreads narrowed to 15% as retailers showed restraint amid rising producer prices.[10]
Eggs: Producer prices fell into early 2025 but retail prices were slow to normalise; later producer-price increases reduced retail margins, with the Report monitoring recovery trajectories post-avian flu.[11]
IQF chicken: Producer prices stable and retail margins held under 40% in 2025 after earlier pressure. [12]
Brown bread: Farm-to-producer spread 77% in 2025 (above historic highs); retail margins fell to 15%, as retailers absorbed later producer increases.[13]
Sunflower oil: Producer margins settled around 25% since late 2023; retail margins elevated (40–45%) due to slow pass-through of producer-price declines.[14]
Maize meal: Producer margins rose rapidly in late 2023 after white maize price drops; retail prices increased in 2025 despite relatively stable producer prices, pushing retail margins to the high end of historic levels.
These findings supply concrete price-formation signals, where margins compress, where they expand, and how quickly costs are transmitted, which are central to the Commission’s ongoing monitoring orientation.
In Conclusion, the COL Report documents a pronounced squeeze on South African households, especially the poorest, driven by elevated inflation in essential services and persistent cost pressures. It demonstrates that while certain categories (e.g., rentals, funeral policies) have increased less than headline inflation, others (e.g., electricity, water, education, and several staple foods) are coming down hard on budgets. In parallel, the COL Report records instances of sticky pricing and widening spreads, and it maintains a clear line between diagnostic monitoring and legal inference.
For competition law and policy, the COL Report delivers three practical gains, by widening the scope to include key essentials beyond food, showing the spreads and pass through clearly, and a continuation of the Early-Warning System. Furthermore, it assists the Commission in fulfilling its mandate by flagging areas which may need attention, guiding debate on administered prices, and grounding future market work in carefully, publicly sourced data.
In a long-anticipated move towards deeper regional integration and harmonised competition oversight, the East African Community Competition Authority (“EACCA”) has formally announced that it will begin receiving and reviewing merger and acquisition notifications with cross-border effects as of 1 November 2025.
This marks a significant implementation milestone under the East African Community Competition Act, 2006, which established the EACCA as the supranational body responsible for enforcing competition policy among the eight EAC Partner States. These Partner States are the Republic of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Federal Republic of Somalia, the Republic of Kenya, the Republic of Rwanda, the Republic of South Sudan, the Republic of Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania.
Notably, on 10 June 2025, the COMESA Competition Commission (“CCC”) and the EACCA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) aimed at strengthening collaboration between the two agencies. With six of the eight East African Community (“EAC”) Partner States also being members of COMESA, the MOU seeks to minimise potential duplication in enforcement, while promoting joint advocacy efforts and an enhanced legal certainty and predictability for businesses operating across the region.
Under the newly effective merger control framework, a transaction must be notified to the EACCA if the combined turnover or assets (whichever is higher) of the merging entities in the EAC equals or exceeds USD 35 million, and at least two of the undertakings have a combined turnover or assets of USD 20 million in the EAC, unless each achieves at least two-thirds of its aggregate turnover or assets in the same Partner State.
Importantly, once a qualifying transaction is notified to the EACCA, there is no requirement to file with national competition authorities, thereby streamlining the merger review process for regional transactions. Merger notifications will be subject to fees ranging from USD 45 000 to USD 100 000, based on the size of the transaction.
While the EACCA’s enforcement powers have been active in areas such as restrictive business practices, the operationalisation of merger control fills a long-standing gap in this regional competition regime. It also brings the EAC in line with other regional economic communities like the CCC and ECOWAS Regional Competition Authority (“ERCA”), which already exercise merger control functions.
Firms with pending or planned transactions in the region should prepare to engage with the Authority under this new regime, ensuring timely filings and compliance from November onwards.
African Antitrust & Competition Law 