Tag: World Bank

Kariuki gets World Bank advisor post

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Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) Director-General Francis Wang’ombe Kariuki, MBS, will serve on the panel and contribute to its annual publication, the “World Development Report” for the upcoming calendar year. An archive of the Bank’s prior Reports is available for review here.

The Kenyan WallStreet publication quotes Kariuki as saying:

“The appointment takes cognizance of the fact that competition law enforcement has a role to play in poverty alleviation and that data is a highly-prized asset among companies, which can be leveraged for [either] development or socioeconomic harm. … Private firms may use data to deter the entry of upcoming firms, thereby limiting or preventing competition to the detriment of the consumers, specifically eroding their purchasing power and choice.”

Kariuki is a former COMESA Competition Commission Board member and a founding member and first chairman of the African Competition Forum.

Don’t wait for leniency… Lipimile signals delays

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COMESA Chief Warns of Delayed Implementation of Leniency Policy

George Lipimile, CEO, COMESA Competition Commission
George Lipimile, Director, COMESA Competition Commission

In an interview with Concurrences, CCC Director George Lipimile stated cautiously that, while the agency had engaged a consultant to help it craft a regional leniency programme, it still had to “be discussed in detail with Member States. Given the different legal systems and the feedback coming from the consultations with Member States so far, this may take some time.”

Thus, “while there is no amnesty programme visible on the near-term horizon, the CCC’s novel cartel enforcement push poses particular concerns for undertakings operating in the COMESA region,” says Andreas Stargard, attorney with Africa advisory firm Pr1merio.  “Director Lipimile has expressed his agency’s plan — jointly with the World Bank organisation — to launch a project designed to combat cartel activity.  They propose to do so first, it seems, by piggy-backing off of other enforcers’ previous investigations, such as the South African Competition Commission’s cartel cases, and analysing whether those instances of foreign collusion could have harmful effects on the COMESA economies.”