Wake-up call to would-be cartelists and monopolists in Kenya

The Standard reports that the Competition Authority of Kenya (“CAK”) (AAT archive on CAK issues here) is threatening cartelists with prison terms of up to 5 years and fines up to 10 million Shilling ($115,000).

According to the report, CAK Director General Francis Wang’ombe Kariuki said that “investigations are already being conducted in [the] transport, insurance, shipping, milling, banking, cement, sugar, health care and tea” sectors, pursuant to purported consumer complaints.

The CAK has actively pursued antitrust matters, using novel approaches of late, as AAT recently reported on a seemingly hybrid unilateral/collusion case (“Kenya: Lafarge faces possible price-fixing penalties due to cross-shareholding“).  The CAK is also the sole COMESA member enforcement authority that has, to our knowledge, challenged the fledgling and issues-plagued COMESA Competition Authority’s jurisdiction in various merger cases.