ausblenden:
Schlagwörter:
Competition Law, Competition Policy, Sub-Saharan
Africa, Global Competition, Developing Countries
Zusammenfassung:
This contribution was prepared for the “Global Competition Law
Conference” held at Chicago-Kent College of Law in October 2011. It
retraces the recent developments in competition law in Sub-Saharan
Africa with a focus on the situation in West Africa. The legal,
political, cultural and institutional dimensions which have influenced
the development and effectiveness of competition law in the region
are discussed. From an international perspective, the contribution
retraces the African countries’ role, if any, in the debate pertaining to
a multilateral framework on competition law. The paper shares David
Gerber´s view that “Africa has generally played at best a marginal role
in global competition law development until very recently, but several
factors suggest that that role may increase”. Amongst these factors are
the potential derived from regionalizing competition policies in Sub-
Saharan Africa and the increased cooperation and technical assistance
in competition law enforcement as evidenced by the recently created
African Competition Forum (ACF).
The proposals put forward in “Global Competition” by David
Gerber are also discussed from the perspective of Sub-Saharan
African countries. In particular, it is argued in this contribution that
the “commitment pathway” proposed there is a beneficial approach
for developing countries since it would help them fight cross-border
anticompetitive practices through a multilateral agreement. Moreover,
the proposal respects the diversity of approaches in competition law
and the need of developing countries to conceptualize their own
competition law models. The phasing out of the norms on the
multilateral level would give also developing countries time to learn and to contextualize their competition policies. The pertinence of a
multilateral approach is also discussed in light of the recent
developments, in particular the shift toward bilateral approaches in
dealing with competition matters.
