Abstract:
African Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are regional grouping of African states
with the purpose to facilitate regional economic integration between members of the
individual regions and through wider African Economic Community. Regulating
competition within their member states is among the objectives of the RECs. Common
Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and
Southern African Development Community (SADC) are among RECs established in Eastern
and Southern part of Africa. These RECs are selected for the purpose of this study because
they are characterized by membership overlap and recognized by African Union. Regulating
merger activities within their member states are their key objectives and they have their own
organs for regulations. Merger involves the coming together of two or more business
entities to constitute to a single entity and obtaining control over the entity by purchase of
its share or assets. Merger activities which have regional dimension shall be regulated by
COMESA Competition Commission (CCC) and the power to regulate merger activities
among the member states of EAC is given to EAC Competition Authority (EACCA). SADC
does not has a regional competition enforcement mechanism, but its members are committed
to cooperate in the application of their national competition laws. Membership overlaps are
prevalently seen in these RECs. Out of 19 COMESA member states, nine of them are
members of SADC. Out of 6 EAC member states, 4 of them are members of COMESA and
one is member of SADC. It remains unclear who will exercise primary jurisdiction among
EACCA, CCC and SADC Competition Authorities over merger regulations where a
membership overlap occurs. This possibly result to forum shopping, conflicting decisions,
multiple investigation which leads to administrative inefficiency, duplication of filing, delay
in decision making, extra expense, uncertainty and the possibility of conflicting decisions.
Ultimately these affect the objective establishment of RECs. To minimize and eventually
eliminate the contradictions brought by jurisdictional overlap over merger regulation, they
have to establish a system of cooperation which allow for the allocation of cases or referral
mechanism among these RECs.
