By Cameron Firth and Rahul Saha, King & Wood Mallesons

Cameron FirthThe Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (“COMESA”) is a supra-national organisation with 19 Member States, which are Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The COMESA Competition Commission (the “CCC”) commenced operations on 14 January 2013 and implements a supra-national merger control regime under the COMESA Competition Rules and COMESA Competition Regulations 2004 (the “Regulations”). In response to calls for greater clarity and legal certainty, COMESA published the Draft Merger Assessment Guidelines in April 2013 (the “Draft Guidelines”). While the Draft Guidelines provided some clarification on certain ambiguities in the Regulations, a number of issues remained unresolved.
Continue Reading Recent developments in COMESA merger control