Gabon is a member of CEMAC, which is a regional body grouping together the Central African countries of Gabon, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Congo and Chad and has a common competition law regime.

No. According to local counsel’s exchanges with the DGCC, Gabon has not signed a specific memorandum of understanding with another jurisdiction on competition matters.

In accordance with Articles 19 and 20 of the CEMAC Competition Regulation, the Commission has a general competence, in collaboration with the national authorities, to apply Community competition law in all areas concerning, in particular

• the common market of the Economic Union;
• the achievement of the objectives of the common market of the Economic Union; and
• the application of the regulations in force and the enforcement of sanctions.

No. When a merger is notifiable and the regional notification thresholds are also triggered, the parties are required to notify only at the regional level.

In terms of to Article 59(1) of the CEMAC Competition Regulation, mergers with a community dimension fall under the exclusive competence of the Commission under the control of the Community Court of Justice.

According to local counsel’s exchanges with the DGCC, these procedures are confidential and therefore no communication on the details of the related operations is allowed.

However, it should be noted that the modalities of cooperation between the Community authority and the national authorities in the context of the application of the competition law or the examination of mergers are defined by the regulations in force.

In accordance with Article 19 of the CEMAC Competition Regulation, please note that in general, the regional Competition Authority has general jurisdiction in all member states of the CEMAC zone in collaboration with each of the respective national authorities.

In this respect, Article 25 of the above-mentioned Regulation specifies that the Community authority, the Community Competition Council (“CCC”), being the body of the Community authority in charge of examining notification files and issuing an opinion on the basis of which the authority takes its decision, and the national competition authorities must apply the Community competition rules in close and constant liaison.

In addition, Article 26 provides that the Community authority and the national authority are obliged to keep each other informed of the initiation of each procedure.

Article 27 of the same Regulation states that:

• the Commission, the CCC and the national authorities shall cooperate in accordance with arrangements for the exchange of information laid down in a Commission Procedural Regulation;
• the Commission and the CCC shall periodically transmit to the national authorities information on ongoing cases throughout the Union;
• the national authorities periodically provide the Commission and the CCC with information on ongoing cases; and
• together, the Commission, the CCC and the national competition authorities, the sectoral regulators of the Member States form a network for information sharing, operational capacity building and the consistent application of the Community competition rules.

Moreover, Article 57 paragraph 2 of Regulation n°000350 on the procedure for the application of competition rules provides that in the framework of the examination of a merger, the CCC may ask the CEMAC Member States to carry out investigations on the national legal, regulatory and administrative framework of the sector concerned, on the markets in question, on the actors of these markets, producers, purchasers, customers, subcontractors, final consumers.

According to local counsel’s exchanges with the DGCC, no such announcement has been made to date, either by the national Competition Authority or by regional bodies, notably the CEMAC Commission and the CCC.