Category: Uganda

COMESA antitrust authority swears in 4 new commissioners

Posted on by andreasstargard

COMESA out of service

Four new Commissioners sworn in – while COMESA’s own site fails to make announcement

We do not commonly report on news from the Seychelles here on AAT, but today, the Office of the President of the Seychelles has in fact beat AAT (as well as the COMESA Competition Commission itself (!)) to it: as the Office reports, the 18th COMESA Summit, held on 30th March 2015 in Addis Ababa, (a city that I have fallen in love with, by the way), saw the swearing-in of four new COMESA Competition Commissioners.

The summit also saw the swearing in of Mr. George Tirant, Chief Executive Officer of the Seychelles Fair Trading Commission. Mr. Tirant was appointed as a commissioner on the COMESA Competition Commission, alongside representatives from Egypt, Uganda and Ethiopia.

We have not yet identified the other new members that were sworn in this week, but in admitting so we note in the same breath that it is surprising for the authority itself not to have this relevant item anywhere on its site, neither in the News category nor anywhere else.  Indeed, the reader looks in vain for even a cursory Press Release announcing that 4 new Commissioners were seated for a new term of 3 years each. COMESA’s site still shows the outdated list of its Commissioners (copied below the photo below).

Irregular?  Perhaps.  But then again, we are used to outages and unfortunately much worse from the COMESA Competition Commission web site.

AAT notes that, in addition to the four new competition commissioners, the 19-country IGO also welcomed new:

  • Judge President and Judges of the Appellate Division of the COMESA Court of Justice
  • Principal Judge and Judges of the First Instance Division of the COMESA Court of Justice
  • the COMESA Committee of Elders
COMESA's 18th Summit in Ethiopia
COMESA’s 18th Summit in Ethiopia

[Outdated] List of Commissioners from Comp Comm web site:

  1. Commissioner Alexander Juvensio Kububa : Chairperson of the Board of Commissioners and former Chief Executive Officer of the Competition and Tariff Commission of Zimbabwe.
  2. Commissioner Mathews Chikankheni: Vice Chairperson of the Board of Commissioner and President of the Malawi Confederation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
  3. Commissioner Ali Mohamed Afkada: Inspector General des Services Judiciarisés’ de Djibouti.
  4. Commissioner Daniel Phillip Gappy – Former Chief Executive Officer of Fair Trading Commission of Seychelles and Chief Executive Officer of Seychelles Licensing Authority.
  5. Commissioner Rajeev Hasnah: former Deputy Director of Competition Commission of Mauritius.
  6. Commissioner Francis Kariuki: Director General of Competition Authority of Kenya.Commissioner Rajeev Hasnah:  Chief Economist and Deputy Executive Director of the Competition Commission of Mauritius.
  7. Commissioner Thabisile Pearl Langa’: Chief Executive Officer of Swaziland Competition Commission.
  8.  Commissioner Rostom Omar: Former Legal Counselor of Egyptian Competition Commission.
  9. Commissioner Chilufya Sampa: Chief Executive Officer of Competition Commission of Zambia

COMESA merger stats: January ’14 outperforms first 6 months of 2013

Posted on by Editor
COMESA Competition Commission logo
Three merger notifications in one month set new record for COMESA Competition Commission.

After commenting on the rather lackluster statistics of the first 11 months A.D. 2013, we observed that some deal-making parties might be “flying under the radar” and asked the question:

Combine Point 4 above (low filing statistics) with the zero-threshold and low nexus requirements that trigger a COMESA merger notification, and the following question inevitably comes to mind: With such low thresholds, and the certain existence of commercial deal activity going on in the COMESA zone, why are there so few notifications?

Well, the young agency’s stats have picked up some steam in 2014, it would seem: based on a review of its online document repository, the CC has received a whopping three notifications in January alone.  They are, in chronological order:

  1. Mail & courier services: FedEx / SupaSwift – a transaction involving the acquisition of a South African courier with operations in multiple COMESA member states, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zambia.
  2. Agricultural distribution and financial services: AgriGroupe / AFGRI Ltd. – Mauritian SPV AgriGroupe seems to be taking AFGRI (listed on the JSE) private.  The target has operations in multiple COMESA countries.
  3. Generic pharmaceuticals: CFR Inversiones SPA / Adcock Ingram Holdings Ltd. – Chilean CFR is buying all of South African off-patent pharmaceuticals manufacturer Adcock’s shares. Notably, the buyer has no COMESA activities; target is active in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
(c) AAT
Merger notification stats for COMESA as of Feb. 2014

Take-aways:

  • Activity has increased dramatically.  Is it a coincidence & a statistically irrelevant blip on the radar screen?  This remains to be seen. The parties are – unlike last year’s – not “repeat parties” and therefore the increase in notifications seems to be natural/organic growth, if you will, rather than a case of the same bear falling into the same honey-trap multiple times…
  • The Competition Commission has listened to its critics (including this blog). Notably, the CC now clearly identifies the affected member-state jurisdictions in the published notice – a commendable practice that it did not follow in all previous instances, and which AAT welcomes.

Post-scriptum: Adding up the total 2013 tally of notifications, the Tractor & Grader Supplies Ltd / Torre Industrial Holdings transaction (notified after our prior statistics post in November 2013) brought the sum-total of COMESA merger filings to 11 for FY2013.

Ugandan telecoms merger may test COMESA regime

Posted on by andreasstargard

COMESA old flag colorUganda

The announced merger between Warid Telecom and Airtel in Uganda (a COMESA member state) may become an interesting test case for the COMESA Competition Commission‘s merger-notification regime.  At least we here at AfricanAntitrust.com think so.

Not only does this deal present the opportunity for outsiders to watch whether, and if so, when the parties will notify the transaction to the CCC (the thresholds and conditions to notifiability are almost certainly met, given the pan-African activities of Bharti, Airtel’s Indian parent company) — it also may raise substantive concerns from a competition-law and merger-enforcement perspective, in light of the fact that the reported fusion of the #2 and #3 players in the Ugandan mobile telecoms market would result in a de facto 3-to-2 merger.

It will also show how the Ugandan authorities deal with COMESA’s claim to supranational jurisdiction over transactions such as this.  (Kenya had not taken well to it previously, as we reported on this blog…)  That said, aside from any NCA (since there is none in Uganda…), the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has already backed the deal as apparently pro-competitive, as The Independent reports. The reasoning there seems to be that a stronger #2 player will present more competitive challenges to the #1, which is MTN Uganda. Not necessarily orthodox antitrust doctrine, but it also comes from a non-competition body, so there…