Tag: MoU

Egypt’s Central Bank Joins COMESA’s Competition Rules: A simple guide to what the 2026 CBE-CCCC agreement means

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By Gabriella Francesca Paolini, Matthew Freer & Holly Joubert

On 11 May 2026, the Central Bank of Egypt (“CBE”) signed an agreement with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa’s (“COMESA”) Competition and Consumer Commission (“CCCC”). COMESA is a regional trade group covering Eastern and Southern Africa. The deal was signed by the CBE Deputy Governor Mai Aboulnaga and the CCCC Chief Dr Willard Mwemba.  This development carries greater significance than it may initially appear, as it materially alters the application of competition law within Egypt’s banking sector. The Memorandum of Understanding (“MoU”) establishes a formal cooperation framework between CBE and the CCCC, enabling the two authorities to coordinate on merger review, share information, and jointly investigate anti-competitive conduct within Egypt’s banking and financial services sector. To understand why this agreement matters, it must be read alongside the CCCC’s newly adopted 2026-2030 Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan was published in February 2026 setting out five strategic pillars for the CCCC over its new five-year cycle. These pillars include integrating markets and regulatory harmonisation; effective enforcement and compliance; institutional innovation; contextual leadership; and strategic partnerships and stakeholder engagement. The Plan’s overarching mission is “Advancing Regional Integration through Competitive Markets and Empowered Consumers” (2026-2030 Strategic Plan of COMESA CCCC,2026). This Frames cooperation agreements such as this one not as diplomatic courtesy, but as enforcement infrastructure. This article examines the legal and practical implications of the MoU, situating it within Egypt’s broader history of cooperation with COMESA’s competition framework, and considers what the agreement means for banks, payment providers, and fintech businesses operating across the region.

The current environment

The timing of the MoU is equally significant when read against the broader evolution of COMESA’s competition framework. On 5 December 2025, the COMESA Competition and Consumer Protection Regulations, 2025 came into force, introducing for the first time a dedicated regulatory architecture for digital markets, including a global transaction-value threshold of USD 250 million for mergers involving digital market operators . Fintech and payment-related transactions, by virtue of their data-intensive and multi-sided characteristics, fall squarely within this expanded scope. It is against this backdrop that Dr Willard Mwemba, CEO of the CCCC, welcomed the CBE partnership, noting that it “provides a valuable platform for both institutions to share knowledge and strengthen enforcement of competition laws across member states” (Egyptian Gazette, 2026). Read together, the new digital merger regime and the CBE MoU suggest a deliberate, two-pronged strategy: COMESA is simultaneously expanding its own substantive jurisdiction over digital and fintech transactions, while securing the institutional cooperation, through instruments such as the CBE MoU, necessary to apply that expanded jurisdiction effectively within Egypt’s financial sector specifically.

How We Got Here

Egypt’s first agreement with the CCCC dates back to 2016. The 2016 deal was signed by the Egyptian Competition Authority (“ECA”), not the CBE. It addressed matters relating to information sharing, joint investigations, and avoidance of conflicts of bodies in enforcements, whilst ensuring neither party was required to change their own domestic laws. However, the shortfall with the 2016 agreement is that it did not extend to Egypt’s financial sector. In Egypt, competition rules for the financial sector are not handled by the ECA but rather fall into the jurisdiction of the CBE alone, under the 2020 Central Bank Law. There has been a gap for ten years due to COMESA having no formal link with the regulation of competition involving Egypt’s banking sector (Gazette Staff, 2026).

What the MoU Actually Does

The MoU expressly covers six sub-sectors of Egypt’s financial industry: banking, foreign exchange, money transfers, credit ratings, payment systems, and fintech. This scope reflects both the breadth of cross-border financial activity between Egypt, other COMESA Member States, and the CCCC’s 2026–2030 strategic emphasis on digital financial infrastructure as a priority enforcement area. Operationally, the MoU provides for three core cooperation mechanisms. Firstly, the investigative coordination where the CBE and CCCC may now coordinate on competition cases that have cross-border dimensions within the financial sector. Secondly, expertise and information exchange, the two institutions may share knowledge, data, and analytical capacity on issues of common concern. Thirdly, capacity building, the MoU contemplates structured technical assistance to strengthen the CBE’s competition enforcement capabilities over time. A particularly significant operational development arising from the MoU is that the CBE will establish a dedicated internal competition unit to manage implementation. This is a meaningful institutional commitment. It signals that the CBE intends to treat competition oversight in the financial sector as an ongoing operational function, rather than an ad hoc responsibility. For regulated entities, it is a clearer interlocutory for competition-related queries and procedures within the central bank.

What the New Deal Changes

The 2026 MoU fills the gap. The CBE is now the first central bank in COMESA, and the first sector-specific regulator of any kind, to sign a deal of this nature with the CCCC. It covers banking, foreign exchange, money transfers, credit ratings, payment systems, and fintech. Officials refer to it as a step toward “regional integration” and “fair competition.” Although this is an accurate statement, it undersells the practical changes pertaining to which Egyptian authority now works with COMESA on bank-related competition issues, and what that means for any bank or fintech doing business across the region.

Why It Matters

The biggest change resulting from the MoU is how the CBE and CCCC cases now connect. Before the MoU, the two processes were completely separated: anything admitted to one authority did not affect the other. A positive consequence of this change is that it reduces the risk of the CBE and CCCC reaching different conclusions in relation to the same matters. However, this arrangement creates the possibility that adverse findings or commitments made against a party before one authority may be relied upon against that party in proceedings before another authority.

Egypt now has two agreements with COMESA, the old 2016 agreement focusing on general competition and the new 2026 agreement with the CBE, focusing on the financial sector. The CBE and ECA have collaborated informally on anti-trust and merger cases that overlap; however, it is unclear how the new agreement affects this relationship. This question is sharpened by a further point of friction regarding COMESA’s “one-stop-shop” merger review mechanism, under which the CCCC’s clearance of a qualifying regional merger can substitute for separate national notifications across Member States, but this does not apply to Egypt. If that position holds, then the CBE’s accession to a cooperative framework with the CCCC, specifically in relation to merger control in the financial sector, creates an apparent asymmetry. COMESA-level coordination on financial-sector mergers may now operate co-operatively in substance even as the ECA maintains that the formal “one-stop-shop” mechanism is inapplicable to Egyptian merger notifications generally. Reconciling these two positions, in principle and in practice, is likely to be tested in the cases that follow.

The MoU’s express inclusion of payment systems, payment service providers, and financial technology businesses is also notable, and reflects a broader regional trend of competition regulators extending their analytical frameworks to digital financial infrastructure. Fintech mergers and platform-based payment arrangements often raise competition concerns, network effects, data advantages, multi-sided market dynamics, that sit awkwardly within traditional banking competition analysis (European Parliament, 2019). By bringing this sector explicitly within the CBE-CCCC cooperative framework from the outset, the MoU positions Egypt’s central bank to engage with COMESA on what is likely to be one of the more active areas of cross-border competition enforcement in the coming years.

Closing Remarks

The 2026 MoU is more than just a symbolic step toward “regional oversight”, it is the financial-sector version of the 2016 Agreement, finally closing a gap left when Egypt’s financial sector was taken out of the ECA’s control. For lawyers working with banks and fintechs in the region, should shape how they handle admissions and commitments before both authorities going forward.

Competition and Consumer Protection enhanced through EAC-COMESA Collaboration

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By Andreas Stargard and Nicole Araujo

In addition to the massive changes occurring in the world of COMESA and its newly-styled COMESA Competition and Consumer Commission, on which we reported here and here, the East African Community Competition Authority (“EACCA”) and the (then) COMESA Competition Commission (“CCC”) had formalised their cooperation on regional competition and consumer protection through a Memorandum of Understanding (“MoU”) back in June 2025.

We wish to return briefly to this development, as it marked a significant effort by the two (potentially competing and decidedly geographically overlapping) regional bodies to address regulatory gaps that emerge where commercial activity extends across multiple regions, but regulatory authority remains confined by jurisdictional limits.

In essence, the MoU aims to strengthen collaboration between the two regional bodies on competition and consumer protection enforcement and creates a practical framework for coordinating cross-border cases and joint investigations into unfair market practices. This coordination will enable effective information sharing in the context of joint investigations, assist in carrying out market inquiries and studies, support technical assistance and capacity-building initiatives, while also helping to avoid duplication in enforcement efforts.

Recognising the need for streamlined coordination, the EACCA and CCC have committed to implementing annual action plans and to reviewing relevant regulations and guidelines to ensure their effectiveness and alignment across the two regional bodies.

The MoU between the EACCA and the CCC represents an important institutional step toward more coherent regional competition and consumer protection enforcement in Africa. While enhanced cooperation, information-sharing and coordinated investigations are necessary to address cross-border conduct, the practical impact of the MoU will depend on effective implementation and sufficient resourcing of both authorities. Ultimately, the success of this cooperation framework will be measured not by its formal commitments, but by whether it delivers predictable, efficient enforcement outcomes that strengthen market integration while safeguarding competition and consumer welfare across the region.

Tanzania: FCC and ZFCC align enforcement

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By Michael Williams

The TZ Fair Competition Commission (FCC) and the Zanzibar Fair Competition Commission (ZFCC) concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 29 September 2025 intended to deepen institutional cooperation in safeguarding fair competition and consumer interests across the United Republic of Tanzania. The stated objective is to increase joint strength and capacity to address unfair competition and consumer rights infringements that may affect both mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.

In remarks reported at the signing ceremony, the Permanent Secretary of Tanzania’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (mainland Tanzania), Dr Hashil Abdalah, emphasised execution mechanics as the MoU’s immediate priority. In particular, he indicated that the FCC and ZFCC should designate responsible persons or a dedicated team to oversee implementation and should develop a “roadmap” or “plan of action” to guide delivery, with an indicative timeline referenced as within three months. He further underscored that individual tasks should be time-bound, and that training and orientation seminars for FCC and ZFCC staff should be used to build a shared understanding of the cooperation’s purpose, alongside a structured monitoring cadence to evaluate implementation progress. 

From the FCC’s side, the Acting Director General, Ms Khadija Ngasongwa, characterised the MoU as an expression of institutional solidarity and a strategic step to pool capacity in confronting unfair competition and consumer protection challenges that may have cross-territorial dimensions within the Union. The same coverage links the cooperation agenda to wider governmental priorities of enabling trade and improving the business environment, referencing the policy direction associated with President Samia Suluhu Hassan and the President of Zanzibar, Dr Hussein Ali Mwinyi, as the contextual backdrop for closer regulatory coordination. 

New antitrust MoU between COMESA & EEC

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No, that’s not the European Economic Community, but rather the slightly less well-known Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), thank you for asking…

The Memorandum of Understanding, signed in late July in Geneva, is designed to allow the two agencies to “cooperate in addressing anti-competitive conduct in their respective regions, capacity building and research,” according to AAT’s old friend and CCC 2.0 executive, Dr. Willard Mwemba.

His EEC counterpart, Mr. Arman Shakkaliyev, Minister in charge of Competition & Antitrust Regulation, said that the future collaboration “opened up new opportunities” for closer interaction and the sharing of experiences and knowledge as to specific investigations, most notably, in addition to the two agencies planning more standard cooperative ventures such as joint conferences or training seminars.

Says Andreas Stargard, a competition lawyer at Primerio Ltd.:

“This latest MoU represents yet a further step in the clear and unmistakable direction of ever-closer cooperation between enforcement agencies on the African continent that we have seen for a few years now. The advice to be taken from this is fairly simple: Companies operating in more than one country in Africa should take note of this development, as their local ‘competition reputation‘ from one jurisdiction will doubtless precede them in the other, given the information-sharing between African watchdogs, which catches many corporates seemingly unawares…”

Pan-African Antitrust Round-Up: Mauritius to Egypt & Tunisia (in)to COMESA

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A spring smorgasbord of African competition-law developments

As AAT reported in late February, it is not only the COMESA Competition Commission (CCC), but also the the Egyptian antitrust authorities, which now have referred the heads of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to the Egyptian Economic Court for competition-law violations relating to certain exclusive marketing & broadcasting rights.  In addition, it has been reported that the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) has also initiated prosecution of seven companies engaged in alleged government-contract bid rigging in the medical supply field, relating to hospital supplies.

Nigeria remains, for now, one of the few powerhouse African economies without any antitrust legislation (as AAT has reported on here, here, here and here).

But, notes Andreas Stargard, an antitrust attorney with Primerio Ltd., “this status quo is possibly about to change: still waiting for the country’s Senate approval and presidential sign-off, the so-called Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Bill of 2016 recently made it past the initial hurdle of receiving sufficient votes in the lower House of Representatives.  Especially in light of the Nigerian economy’s importance to trade in the West African sphere, swift enactment of the bill would be a welcome step in the right direction.”

The global trend in competition law towards granting immunity to cartel whistleblowers has now been embraced by the Competition Commission of Mauritius (CCM), but with a twist: in a departure from U.S. and EU models, which usually do not afford amnesty to the lead perpetrators of hard-core antitrust violations, the CCM will also grant temporary immunity (during the half-year period from March 1 until the end of August 2017) not only to repentant participants but also to lead initiators of cartels, under the country’s Leniency Programme.

The Executive Director of the CCM, Deshmuk Kowlessur, is quoted in the official agency statement as follows:

‘The policy worldwide including Mauritius, regarding leniency for cartel is that the initiators of cartel cannot benefit from leniency programmes and get immunity from or reduction in fines. The amnesty for cartel initiatorsis a one-off opportunity for cartel initiators to benefit from immunity or up to 100% reduction in fines as provided for under the CCM’s leniency programme. The amnesty is a real incentive for any enterprise to end its participation in a cartel. In many cases it is not clear for the cartel participant itself as to which participant is the initiator. The participants being unsure whether they are an initiator finds it too risky to disclose the cartel and apply for leniency. The amnesty provides this unique window of 6 months where such a cartel participant can apply and benefit from leniency without the risk of seeing its application rejected on ground of it being an initiator.’

 

COMESA Competition Commission logoFinally, COMESA will grow from 19 to 20 member states, welcoming Tunisia at the upcoming October 2017 summit: the official statement notes that “Tunisia first applied for observer status in COMESA in 2005 but the matter was not concluded. In February, 2016 the country formally wrote to the Secretary General making inquiries on joining COMESA. This set in motion the current process towards its admission. once successfully concluded, Tunisia will become the 20[th] member of COMESA.”

This means that within 6 months of accession to the Common Market, Tunisia’s business community will be bound by the competition regulations (including merger control) enforced by the CCC.  Speaking of the CCC, the agency also recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Mauritian CCM on March 24, facilitating inter-agency coordination.  In addition, the Zimbabwean Competition and Tariff Commission (CTC) will host a national sensitisation workshop on COMESA competition policy on May 16, 2017 in Harare, purportedly as a result of “over 50 transactions involving cross-border mergers notified” to the CCC involving the Zimbabwean market.  “The main objective of the national workshop is to raise awareness among the key stakeholders and business community in Zimbabwe with regards to the provisions and implementation of COMEA competition law,” the CTC noted in a statement.

 

Competition forum highlights antitrust enforcement, international cooperation

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South Africa signs cooperation agreements with Russia and Kenya

Leading government officials presented their respective countries’ accomplishments in the antitrust arena at the 10th annual Competition Law, Economics & Policy Conference in Cape Town yesterday.

south_africaThe attendees ranged from the SA Minister of Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel, and the Commissioner of the Competition Commission, Tembinkosi Bonakele, to their Russian and Kenyan counterparts.  Kenya Competition Authority director general Francis Kariuki emphasised the officials’ desire to remove barriers to trade.  He was quoted as saying he looked forward to exchanging information on cross-border cartels, which affect both the South African and Kenyan economies: tsar_200“We have regional economic communities and regional trade. There are some infractions in South Africa which are affecting Kenya and vice versa. We want to join hands to do market enquiries and do research. This will inform our governments when they come up with policies.”

On the inside-BRICS front, the SA Commission signed an MoU with Russia, adding to Russia’s “rich and diverse bilateral agreements portfolio.”  The MoU is described as focussing particularly on pharmaceutical and automotive sectors, in which pending or future sectoral inquiries would see information-sharing between the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia and the SACC, according to the FAS deputy chief Andrey Tsarikovskiy.

Patel talksMister Patel’s keynote address showed the glass half-full and half-empty, focussing in part on the need to “scale” the South African agency activity up to the level of the “success story” of domestic competition enforcement and its large caseload (quoting 133 new cartel cases initiated in the past year).

Never one to omit politicisation, Mr. Patel noted the perceived parallels he saw between South African history of concentrating economic power in the hands of a minority, raising indirectly the issue of public-interest concessions made in antitrust investigations, including M&A matters.  Mr. Patel clearly sees the SACC’s role as including a reduction in economic inequality among the populace, rather than being a neutral competition enforcer guided solely by internationally recognised legal antitrust & economic principles.  Both he and Commissioner Bonakele drew parallels between their anti-cartel enforcement and a purported reduction in the SA poverty rate of a whopping four tenths of a percent.

 

 

Cooperation, handshakes & MoUs: all the rage in African antitrust?

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AAT the big picture

Significant Strides made to Promote Harmonisation across African Competition Agencies

By AAT Senior Contributor, Michael-James Currie.

In the past 12 months there has been a steady drive by competition law agencies in Africa to promote harmonisation between the respective jurisdictions.

The African regional competition authority, the COMESA Competition Commission (CCC), has entered into memorandum of understandings with a number of its nineteen member states. On 5 June 2016, it was announced that the CCC has further concluded MoU’s with the Swaziland Competition Commission as well as the Fair Trade Commission of the Seychelles.

On 7 May 2016, it was announced that nine members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have also entered into and MoU. These member states include South Africa, Malawi, Botswana, Swaziland, Seychelles, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia.

The SADC MoU was based on the 2009 SADC Declaration on Regional Cooperation and Consumer Policies.

SADC MoUAccording to the South African Competition Commissioner, Mr Tembinkosi Bonakele, the MoU creates a framework for cooperation enforcement within the SADC region.  “The MoU provides a framework for cooperation in competition enforcement within the SADC region and we are delighted to be part of this historic initiative,” said Bonakele.

Interestingly, although a number of the signatories to SADC MoU are not member states of COMESA (that is, South Africa and Namibia, who in turn, have a MoU between their respective competition authorities), Swaziland, Malawi and the Seychelles have existing MoU’s with the COMESA Competition Commission. Says Andreas Stargard, a competition practitioner with Primerio Ltd., “it will be interesting to see, first, whether there may be conflicts that arise out of the divergent patchwork of cooperation MoUs, and second, to what extent the South African Competition Authorities, for example, could indirectly benefit from the broader cooperation amongst the various jurisdiction and regional authorities.”

Part of the objectives of the MoUs to date has largely been to facilitate an advocacy role. However, from a practical perspective, the SADC MoU envisages broader information exchanges and coordination of investigations.

While the MoU’s are a positive stride in achieving cross-border harmonisation, it remains to be seen to what extent the collaboration will assist the respective antitrust agencies in detecting and prosecuting cross border anticompetitive conduct.

There may be a number of practical and legal hurdles which may provide challenges to the effective collaboration envisaged. The introduction of criminal liability for cartel conduct in South Africa, for example, may provide challenges as to how various agencies obtain and share evidence.

COMESA enters into agreement with Seychelles antitrust regulator

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Information-sharing, investigative assistance, and capacity-building at forefront of MoU

As reported by the Swaziland Observer, the Seychelles Competition Commission and COMESA’s Competition Commission have entered, on 20 April 2016, into a Memorandum of Understanding that aims to deepen the cooperation and coordination between the two agencies (as well as the Seychelles Fair Trading Commission).  Republic of Seychelles has been a member of COMESA since its accession to the common market in 1997.

 

image The MoU creates positions of “desk officers” in each agency to ensure that the institutions will cooperate on investigations and share relevant information to ensure enforcement.  It also foresees policy coordination, technical assistance and capacity-building programs.

FTC Seychelles CEO Georges Tirant pointed out that the MoU merely formalises what has already been a day-to-day reality, with the aim of legislative harmonisation and ultimately regional integration.  “I have a dream that all African member states should work together for a better Africa,” he said.  COMESA Competition Commission Board Chairman Mattews Chikankheni said that it would “improve efficiency in day to day processes, remove entry barriers create an enabling ground for small businesses and medium enterprises which will enable economic growth, job creation and reduce poverty.”

COMESA old flag colorseychellesCCC Chief Executive Officer George Lipimile emphasised the need to create jobs and “link industries,” as well as explain the agency’s mission: “We are going to work hard so that competition laws make sense to the people, because a law that does not benefit people is useless.”

Landmark bilateral competition agreement takes effect

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namibiasouth_africa

South Africa and Namibia sign landmark memorandum of understanding

On 11 November 2015, the Competition Commission of South Africa and theNamibian Competition Commission signed an historic memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation on competition matters both in terms of policy and enforcement.

Andreas Stargard, a director with African competition-law and anti-corruption advisors Pr1merio, points out, that collaboration of the two relatively mature agencies is not new per se:

Having cooperated in prior years on multiple merger investigations (see, e.g., the Wal*Mart / Massmart transaction), the time had come for a formalised agreement in principle between these two key southern-African jurisdictions.  Antitrust practitioners in the region should anticipate a hopefully streamlined process across national borders, especially in terms of merger reviews & clearance, as well as quite likely conduct investigations in the cartel or dominance areas.

Says the SACC’s press release:

“We thank the Namibian Competition Commission for their cooperation. I’m grateful we’re able to formalise our relations. Our laws tend to be similar which makes cooperation easier,” said South African Competition Commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele.

Namibian Competition Commission Chief Executive Officer, Mr Mihe Gaomab said that the signing of the MoU is a historic moment for them, and that this will improve cooperation between the authorities, especially on multi-jurisdiction projects, such as mergers.