The regional competition watchdog is reviewing its regulations to keep pace with rapid technological advancement and emerging issues in consumer protection.
The new laws expected to be in place by December this year seek to improve on the COMESA Competition Commission's (CCC) regulations that have remained unchanged over the past two decades.
CCC chief executive Willard Mwemba noted the review process that begun in May 2021 culminated to a draft document in May 2024 that is currently being scrutinized by the COMESA's legislative committees.
"Our laws have been there since 2004 so we will have to review them, as they did not envisage among other things digital markets, Artificial Intelligence (AI), environmental issues of climate change and consumer violations bordering on dark patterns," he told journalists recently in Livingstone, Zambia.
The CCC is responsible for enforcement of the COMESA Competition Regulations in territories of all the 21 Member States in relation to restrictive business practices and mergers with a cross-border dimension and which restrict competition in the Common Market.
Of the 21 Member States, only Eritrea and Somalia do not currently have competition laws.
The CCC has MoUs with Burundi, DRC, Egypt, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Some of the issues introduced in the new laws extensively touch on consumer rights, dark patterns and harmful digital content especially on children as well as environmental concerns.
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Dark patterns are tricks used on consumers on electronic devices, where they find themselves unable to unsubscribe from active subscriptions or are compelled to pay for unintentional purchases.
To reflect the consumer protection mandate, the CCC is mulling a change of name to be known as the COMESA Competition and Consumer Commission (CCCC)
Other issues introduced under the new law include new merger notification thresholds for digital market, provisions to address abuse of buyer power/ abuse of economic dependency as well as a shift from non- suspensory to suspensory regime.
Under the current COMESA competition legal framework, parties do not have to await the approval of the CCC once they file merger notification.
The new laws have proposed amendment for parties to seek approval of the Commission before implementing a merger and that implementing a merger without the approval of the Commission shall be a breach for which parties can be fined.
Over the past year, the CCC has witnessed a steady increase in number of mergers. As at July 2024, it had received some 29 merger notifications and requests for comfort letters, highlighting a 16 percent increase from the 25 registered the year before.
The new act will introduce more robust mechanisms for enforcing consumer rights.
Breaches of consumer protections will carry specific consequences, enhancing the accountability of businesses and ensuring better protection for consumers.
