Tag: meta

AdLegal lodges COMESA complaint over Meta’s WhatsApp AI restrictions

Posted on by Editor

By Courtney Kaplan and Leon Hattingh

On 5 January 2026, the competition and consumer practice group, AdLegal, lodged a complaint with the COMESA Competition and Consumer Commission (the“CCCC”) under Regulation 67 of the new COMESA Competition and Consumer Protection Regulations, 2025 (the “Regulations”). This complaint was launched against Meta Platforms Inc and Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, following its 15 October 2025 amendment to WhatsApp User Agreements, which allegedly restricts the manner in which other AI chatbots can use WhatsApp’s application programming interface (“API”).

The User Agreement is a contract entered into between users and WhatsApp that sets out what either party is entitled to do. With WhatsApp alleged to be a preferred, or ‘dominant’, messaging platform throughout the African continent, this purportedly provides both WhatsApp and its parent company, Meta, an unduly strong platform on which to promote its own services.

Meta has been accused of the similar violations by competition authorities elsewhere and faces probes across multiple jurisdictions, including in the European Union and Brazil.

AdLegal’s claim against Meta

AdLegal alleges that Meta currently allows users access to Meta AI directly in WhatsApp chats, further that the API is used to integrate any third-party software, including alternative AI products, which compete directly with Meta AI, such as Grok, Gemini and Open AI’s Chat GPT.

In this regard, AdLegal alleges that:

  • Meta’s updated user contract, which restricts the use of this API by competing AI companies, restricts entry of new AI companies into the market, violating Regulation 36(1)(a) of the Regulations;
  • this conduct deters and prevents competition in the AI market, which violates Regulation 36(1)(b) of the Regulations.
  • the update can foreclose other undertakings from the market that rely on WhatsApp’s platform to provide their AI services to users, violating Regulation 36(1)(c) of the Regulations.

What this means for Meta and for the COMESA market

While the CCCC’s investigation into the alleged conduct remains in its initial stages, the complaint sends a strong message to multinational companies that enforcement and complaints in the COMESA region are to be taken seriously, particularly with the onset of the new Regulations, promulgated in late 2025. The complaint is a signal to multinationals, particularly in digital markets, that compliance with the competition regulations will be enforced, particularly where dominant market positions are alleged to have been abused.

John Oxenham, director at Primerio notes that the complaint marks a significant step towards challenging anti-competitive practices and holding tech companies in the COMESA region accountable. The outcome of the investigation could mean that dominant tech companies operating across Africa must adopt open, competitive digital ecosystems instead of leveraging their market position to sideline rival AI providers.

African antitrust authority fines META quarter-billion dollars — WhatsApp (with that?)

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Nigeria’s FCCPC has imposed a U.S. $220m fine on WhatsApp’s parent company Meta for violating data privacy laws, continuing the FCCPC’s consumer-protection streak

When it rains, it pours. And when the nascent FCCPC (on whose relatively youthful existence we have reported extensively) issues a fine on a global mega corporation like META (or BAT to the tune of $110m), then it really reaches deep into its pockets: Mr. Zuckerberg’s conglomerate will have to pay $220m to resolve an extensively-documented violation abusing its dominant position, exploiting Nigerian WhatsApp users’ personal data, which it had stored in Singapore, Europe and the U.S. The proceedings were brought approximately 3 years ago, culminating in a particularly in-depth Report issued by the FCCPC and the resulting fining decision last week, pursuant to both the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2018 (FCCPA), and the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation, 2019 (NDPR).

At the heart of the allegations lies Meta’s undisclosed, apparent dual-use of WhatsApp user information and metadata (no pun), across virtually all of its conglomerate digital platform companies — i.e., data-sharing conduct squarely in violation of the NDPR and, so says the FCCPC, without consumer knowledge and in many cases against WhatsApp users’ wishes.

Andreas Stargard, a competition lawyer at Primerio Ltd., with a focus on African antitrust cases, comments as follows on this latest record-setting West African case:

“This latest foray by the FCCPC against Meta is notable for multiple reasons: First, it spans both the inaugural aegis of the FCCPC under internationally lauded former FCCPC chief, Babatunde Irukera, and that of his recent successor, Tunji Bello.

Secondly, it represents a new record, and quite literally a doubling of the last record fine, namely the $110m agreed-upon antitrust settlement against British American Tobacco less than 2 years ago.

Third, it shows a trend we have recently noticed in the African government enforcement world: namely, the intertwined nature of competition law and consumer-protection issues, which the detailed Report issued by Commission staff highlights in a significant way. Other agencies on the continent will surely take notice and (we hope) issue similarly-documented case reports going forward.

Fourth, and finally, setting aside the amount of the fine, this matter shows how African jurisdictions may well be ahead of some European and other peer institutions. This is a milestone development for the future regulation of digital behemoths across Africa. The detailed report and analysis provided publicly by the Nigerian agency shows that its nascent competition-law regime continues to be eager to comply with global best practices and appears well situated to keep earning the respect of its Western and other African peer authorities, akin to the journey that the COMESA Competition Commission has undertaken in its first 10 years of existence. Both agencies have gone from non-existent to generally and globally respected African antitrust and consumer-protection powerhouses.”

The Commission’s release noted that “[t]he totality of the investigation has concluded that Meta over the protracted period of time has engaged in conduct that constituted multiple and repeated, as well as continuing infringements… particularly, but not limited to abusive, and invasive practices against data subjects in Nigeria. Being satisfied with the significant evidence on the record, and that Meta has been provided every opportunity to articulate any position, representations, refutations, explanations or defences of their conduct, the Commission have now entered a final order and issued a penalty against Meta.”