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As technology reshapes markets and alters growth and distributional dynamics, policies must ensure that markets remain inclusive and support wide access to the new opportunities for firms and the citizens.
In this special no holds barred interview, Dr Mark Yama Tampuri Jnr shared great insights on the evolving dynamics on competition laws, the significance of the AfCFTA for competition regulators and the need for African states to institutionalize competition regulations.
Dr Mark Yama Tampuri Jnr is a Lecturer and consultant in international finance and development recognized for his exceptional appreciation of Finance, Fintech and payment systems, Financial Inclusion, Policy and digital economy development
He is a fellow of the Fletcher School Leadership Programme for Financial Inclusion (FLPFI), regarded as one of Africa`s young experts in the interface of Finance, Global Business and Policy and has been involved in consultancies for firms. He is also an “Expert Member“of the Digital Euro Association.
He plays an active part in global development issues on International Finance, Fintech and Inclusive financial policies for safe, secure and affordable transactions for individuals and businesses.
Why are competition laws and regulations important to policymakers, businesses and consumers?
Competition laws and regulations aid in fostering fair competition and business practices order, these laws and goals go a long way to offer practical protection for consumers from business activities and practices that could deprive consumers of fairness. Consumer interests are usually a goal of any competition laws and regulations and they can go a long way to support specialized laws on issues such as privacy and safety. Competition laws can protect consumers from firms, especially in the areas of price hikes whiles nurturing fair competition between firms for the economic growth of a country.
While this may be highly beneficial for consumers, businesses also can benefit from competition laws as these laws could cause other institutions to operate in the ambit of fair business practices.
Competition laws help in creating democratic institutions and therefore can reduce certain risks associated with corporate governance which may have macroeconomic implications as we saw in Ghana’s banking crises from 2017 to 2019 that lead to the Bank of Ghana “The Central Bank“ withdrawing the licenses of some nine banks and consolidating some in Ghana. These are important to policymakers.
The World Bank projects that sub-Saharan Africa’s population will double by 2050, to more than 2 billion; Is that an opportunity or a potential threat for competition in the digital market?
The implications that a growing population has on countries and regions somewhat differ considerably. Usually, for the issue of competition and population, the practical way to understand these is to use a model to scientifically predict changes occurring in the populations and how those changes impact fair business practices.
Whiles the population is growing, competition is likely to intensify in areas where businesses are continually making efforts to increase their sizes and market, accompanied by their challenges, particularly with E-Commerce which transcends physical borders. These can pose challenges to competition, however, the innovative competition legal regime should identify these as they can provide the opportunity to innovate with changing needs of the market.
So the question could be how are policymakers and competition authorities putting their best foot forward to meet these challenges, by seeing them as opportunities.
What challenges need to be addressed to harness that potential?
An aspect posing challenges is where disagreement among or between competition authorities in the market that transcend one country. How competition authorities can cooperate on issues such as international mergers and acquisitions of large and powerful firms that may be anti-competitive. The cooperation among competition authorities of different nations may be challenging but when effected, it could save time, and the cost of disagreement will be minimized among competition authorities.
These disagreements and associated costs for competition authorities across jurisdictions are challenging, but we have seen the commitment to collaboration in the digital economy.
Digital markets have raised not only competition law issues but also dataprotection and privacy issues as well. How have these three (dataprotection, privacy and competition law) become more connected over the past few years in Africa?
Significantly the last four (4) have seen some broader discussions among stakeholders, especially on the three issues of privacy, competition and data protection partly because the digital markets are becoming more connected and tech firms are becoming increasingly powerful. Sensitive data are being kept on the servers of firms, which needs an unambiguous regulatory environment to govern how they are gathered, sorted, retrieved and even disposed of.
Just take one digital service. One can take notice of the expansion of ridesharing and ride-hailing, which relies on mobile applications (apps) estimated to grow about 20 per cent annually until 2023, reaching $1.1 billion that year with 11.2 percent consumer penetration. How is the sensitive data of consumers including location (some of which could be from their homes ) protected and what legal remedies do especially consumers have should their privacy rights be infringed upon are legitimate concerns.
Some African countries are responding to these issues by partly developing and implementing data protection laws and following antitrust regimes. We can see for Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Togo and others have developed or developing and implemented or implementing some data protection laws which relate to the digital economy, for the protection of citizens’ data, privacy and nurturing competition in their markets. In my own country Ghana, the Data Protection Act, Act 2012 (DPA) is the Act of Parliament providing the legal regime for data protection. However, Article 18 (2) of Ghana`s 1992 Constitution protects rights to privacy as fundamental rights. For competition laws, we have seen some responses by African countries in addressing antitrust issues through the legal regime as well.
In Ghana, the competition law is seen some readings in its parliament and hopefully should be passed into law soon.
But we have seen countries such as Nigeria Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Cote d`Ivoire and Tanzania already have more competition laws that take into account aspects of the digital economy.
Besides the big tech cases, what are the biggest types of antitrust cases in Africa to watch for right now?
I mentioned earlier the fallouts of mergers and acquisitions involving powerful firms being competition authorities’ interest in most cases. The African economy has over the years welcomed powerful firms operating in their markets and these firms tend to contribute enormously to the development of the countries.
But there are sometimes antitrust issues and concerns about mergers and acquisitions.
We can look at vertical mergers where a firm acquires another firm from which it either sells goods/services or buys goods or services. Also, the appetite for unfair practices in acquisitions has over the years been manifested in ways such as the provision of “loyalty rebates“ or what I term “thank you handshakes “ Where a firm gives a discount to a buyer for limiting its purchases from the firm’s competitors. Again issues of the “Most Favored Nation“ clauses, Predation, and Exclusionary conduct are some competition issues that Competition authorities need to continually respond to actively.
The African Continental Free Trade Area agreement, which is thecontinent-wide free trade deal, aims at creating a $3 trillion market, knocking out 90 per cent of tariffs and bolstering intra-Africa trade. What’s the significance of this for the competition regulator?
As a financial and development professional, I understand the significance and potential of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreements for transformation on the continent.
The prospects of The African Continental Free Trade Area agreement are enormous.
Policymakers are expected to implement policies to maximize the potential gains while minimizing risks associated with unfair business practices associated with the development- and that’s why the competition regulator’s role is indisposable.
Vibrant economic activities within a $3 trillion market as is expected of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement has implications for competition regulators. Competition regulators are particularly expected to champion and regulate activities of “trade integrity“ where we expect that international trade transactions in the zone are transparent, legitimate, and priced properly to ensure that The African Continental Free Trade Area agreement trading system are undertaken legitimately. The competition regulator has some enormous tasks; it is expected that the legacy bad trading activities by some firms will continue to persist even under the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. Competition authorities are challenged on issues of trade fraud including mis-invoicing trade transactions which not only undermine fair trade and labour standards but also deprive the state of a huge amount of resources in revenues to the government.
I expect competition regulators to provide leadership in harmonizing the policies and legal regime on four key areas- investments and trade, e-Commerce and payments, data protection and privacy, and intellectual property rights.
Are there specific regulations for a pan-African financial-services company that is different than for other sectors?
I have been advocating for financial regulators to support the enactment of competition laws specifically for the financial sector to respond to the peculiarities of competition issues of the sector. I am not oblivious to the fact that over the years, banks for example have been exempted from the application of strict competition policies due to the reasons of the potential costly trade-off between the stability of the sector and competition. Regulators on the continent have concentrated efforts on enacting general competition policies that apply to the financial sector than specific financial sector competition laws. There is however some rising interest shown by financial regulators and policymakers in the need for fostering competition in the financial sector.
What’s your take on the need for institutionalized competition andantitrust regulations in African states? And how can this drive smartpolicies to enhance competitiveness, strengthen innovation and ensure that African companies can thrive in an increasingly complex world whilst creating value for society?
As an advocate of innovative competition and antitrust regulations in African states, I do appreciate the importance of fair business practices. Competition and antitrust regulations should focus on their aim, thus, to promote competitive markets but not just on promoting lower prices only. Anticompetitive business practices, on the other hand, pose significant risks and threats to consumers (a consumer protection concern) and promote an unfair business practice environment which could affect economic growth negatively.
Innovative competition and antitrust regulations in Africa can promote competitiveness through smart policies, innovation and a supportive environment for businesses to thrive
In your opinion, is Africa ready for strictly competitive markets? Andshould antitrust be about law enforcement or regulation?
Africa has seen increasing notice of antitrust law by regional bodies, evidence of the fact that the continent is building the legal regime required for competitive African markets. We have the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Competition authorities leading legal and policy regimes for regulating and enforcement of competition and competitive markets.
Both regulations and enforcement are needed for antitrust to have the morale appeal and provide punitive measures.
It’s like a carrot and stick situation. The market needs a careful balance of the two. However, whatever approach is being used, regulations and or enforcement must over the period ultimately lead to competitive markets- and that should motivate any of the approaches
Any final thoughts or recommendations to African market regulators?
Markets can as well fail to achieve outcomes of competition especially when realities in the economy hinder the processes of competition.
Competition Authorities, therefore, need to be innovative and understand how issues such as marketplace regulations, the economic environment, the political environment and other barriers can hinder the competition process.
How competition policy can influence the markets by correcting these hindrances in the competitive process is a determining factor in achieving a close to perfectly competitive market
Dr. M. Y Tampri Jnr, Ph.D.
Lecturer, Academic City University College | President, Ghana Fintech Academic Network (GHFAN) | Fellow, The Fletcher School Leadership Programme for Financial Inclusion, Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA.
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