African Competition Forum Elects New Steering Committee

The African Competition Forum (ACF), held its 2nd biennial conference on 11^thto 12 October 2018 at Marrakech, Morocco, hosted by the Competition Council of Morocco. At the conference, a new Steering Committee was elected with South Africa as Chairperson and Tunisia and Mauritius as Vice Chairperson, respectively. 

The new Steering Committee comprises of Algeria, Botswana, eSwatini, Kenya, Mauritius, Senegal, South Africa, The Gambia, Tanzania, Tunisia and Morocco. 

ACF comprises 31 members and five regional competition agencies. The body was established in 2011 in Nairobi, Kenya by 19 founding members. 

ACF is an informal network of African national and multinational competition authorities. It aims to promote the adoption of competition principles in the implementation of national and regional economic policies of African countries, in order to alleviate poverty and enhance inclusive economic growth, development and consumer welfare by fostering competition in markets, and increase investment, productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship. 

The ACF thanks the Competition Council of Morocco for hosting the conference, which was a great success.

Meanwhile, member agencies of the ACF have been called upon to purposefully and proactively pursue case-related cooperation in competition regulation and policy. The call was made by Chairperson Hardin Ratshisusu on 11^thOctober when opening the ACF conference. Ratshisusu, who is also Deputy Chair of the Competition Commission of South Africa, said there have been, and continues to be multiple cross-border investigations that emanate in one jurisdiction relating to particular products or services by particular firms that will inevitably be exported across the globe, including Africa.   He cited investigations into shipping liners, collusion over car parts, forex market manipulation, pharmaceuticals; and recent mega-mergers in agro-chemicals which raised similar competition concerns across jurisdictions. 

“We need to work more in concert in tackling cross-border cartels, unilateral anti-competitive conduct and mergers, as our case-focused cooperation has been less than optimal; a lack of cooperation in competition enforcement is a result of many things, including capacity constraints as well as information asymmetry,” Ratshisusu said.

The ACF Chairperson said cross-border anti-competitive conduct commonly involves large multinationals and more often than not, the first enforcement actions against these firms begin where these firms are headquartered. “This invariably means that some countries are left behind in the starting blocks and have to rely on those competition agencies who have initiated investigations first for information on those investigations. Without deliberate case-related cooperation within the ACF this serious enforcement vacuum relating to cross-border anticompetitive conduct will persist.” 

However, the ACF Chair bemoaned the challenges in cross-border cooperation. “I am acutely aware that the ability of competition authorities to effectively tackle these anti-competitive practices and investigate complex cross-border mergers is often constrained by inadequate resources and, in some cases, the absence of enabling institutions.  It is important that our countries recognise the need to strengthen competition authorities as they form the backbone of effective competition enforcement.”

Touching on successes, Ratshisusu said over the past two years, the ACF has made considerable strides in all three work-streams of the ACF, namely, facilitating integration, capacity building and advocacy. In the past two years it hosted six capacity-building workshops on topics such as cartel investigative skills, merger review, the preparation and execution of dawn raids, and agency effectiveness. In total, 134 case handlers participated in these workshops, all of whom greatly benefited from the knowledge shared. 

Other successes included publication of a book on cross-country ACF studies which draws insights on the nature of competitive rivalry and the power and interests of large firms in four key sectors in southern and East Africa. This achievement was followed by cross-country research in a further five sectors, namely, telecommunications, cement construction, fertilizer and liquefied petroleum gas; and the sector studies are at an advanced stage.

Ratshisisu said the ACF has also continued to invest in its relationships with strategic partners such as the ICN, UNCTAD, OECD, BRICS, and the World Bank, and has become an authoritative voice for young and developing agencies globally. The World Bank has committed to conducting a study on Institutional Design for Agency Effectiveness in partnership with the ACF over the next two years.