Following a meeting of the Council of Ministers in Ethiopia, various amendments have been made to the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Competition Rules and the COMESA Competition Regulations which came into effect on 26 March 2015.
Some of the most important developments are the following:
Filing fees reduced
Noting the concerns raised by the business community that the thresholds for merger notification were set at zero and that filing fees of up to $500,000 were payable, the has approved amendments to the COMESA Rules on the Determination of Merger Notification Threshold of 2012, reducing the cap of filing fees from $500,000 to $200,000. The percentage used in the calculation of filing fees has also been reduced from 0.5% to 0.1%.
Merger threshold
It is also understood that the merger filing thresholds have been raised. In order for a merger to be notifiable to the COMESA Competition Commission:
a. the combined turnover or assets (whichever is higher) of the merging parties in the Common Market must be $50,000,000 or more; and
b. each of the merging parties must have turnover or assets in the Common Market of at least $10,000,000.
In addition to the above, in circumstances where each of the merging parties generates 2/3 of their annual turnover in one and the same Member State, a COMESA filing will not be required and national notification obligations will apply instead.
Certification of documents
Documents that were previously required to be certified but are difficult to certify due to their nature and/or size, such as technical reports, no longer need to be certified.
