After more than eight years of waiting, firms doing business in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) region will finally and for the first time have their competition issues dealt with at a regional level. COMESA has announced the date of commencement of its Competition Regulations (which were adopted in December 2004) as 14 January 2013.

The commencement of the COMESA Competition Commission will have a major impact on how cross-border transactions are handled from a competition law perspective. Previously, parties had to notify all the national competition authorities that had jurisdiction in respect of their transactions. Thus a single transaction could be notified to all those countries with competition legislation if the parties had a presence in those countries.

Now a single consolidated filing can be prepared and submitted to COMESA, although national competition authorities will still have the right to request COMESA to permit them to investigate a matter on a national basis under certain circumstances.

COMESA has appointed the former Head of Mergers of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission of Zambia, Mr Willard Mwemba, as its Head of Mergers. He started with COMESA this week.

The commencement of the COMESA regime is a significant development for competition enforcement in the region. In addition to the compulsory notification of merger transactions, the regime will regulate anti-competitive conduct, and the Commission has specifically invited parties who may have existing agreements that violate the provisions of the Regulations to come forward for discussions. This will affect both vertical and horizontal agreements.