There have been no recent changes to national competition law. That being said, at a sub-regional level, the latest revision of the CEMAC Regulation on Competition occurred in 2019 (“Regulation”). This revision brought about the following substantial changes:
a) the Regulation replaced the two previous regulations, which dealt with company and state practices in the field of competition;
b) the Regulation takes into account the replacement of the Executive Secretariat by the Commission, and more generally the amendment of the CEMAC Treaty and the UEAC Convention in 2009;
c) with respect to community competition bodies, the Regulation established two bodies, namely (i) the Commission, a decision-making body; and (ii) the Community Competition Council (“CCC”), which replaces the Competition Supervisory Body (Organe de surveillance de la Concurrence). Like the Competition Supervisory Body, the CCC plays an advisory role in competition matters and is responsible for investigations, which was previously a responsibility held by the Commission;
d) the Regulation provides useful clarifications on the relationship between community and national competition authorities, delineating the division of competence in the application of community competition law, and the obligation of collaboration between these bodies;
e) with regards to the thresholds set for notification of concentration operations, the Regulation provides that any merger or acquisition which involves two or more CEMAC member states shall be notified to the CEMAC authority; and
f) the thresholds for the notification of any concentration operation have been amended to state that notification shall be compulsory if the combined turnover of the parties to the transaction is greater than 10 billion francs (excluding taxes).
The National Competition Commission (“NCC”) has previously carried out inquiries in several sectors of the economy, either at the request of a public administration body or upon its own initiative, when the practices of certain companies were likely to affect fair competition. These inquiries were conducted in, inter alia, the energy, telecommunications, port and airport, and money transfer sectors. Currently, there is no plan to initiate any market inquiries in relation to any other sector or industry.
No. The NCC generally does not issue public statements expressing concerns in relation to any sector or industry. However, the relevant sector or industry representatives are usually notified directly of any specific concerns that the NCC might have.
No. Please refer to the response above.
No. Dawn raids are not a high risk in Cameroon.
There have been no changes to the regulations or measures related to competition enforcement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
There is no publicly available information regarding such an action.
This is the exclusive competence of the Cameroonian Government, through the Minister of Trade.