Merger Notification Under The CEMAC Competition Law Regime

The competition law regime of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC)¹ is a regional competition law regime, which has recently become more active from a merger control perspective.² While many aspects of the regime are untested at this stage and may still evolve, certain challenges that it presents for merging parties include the fact that (i) the regime is suspensory and the legislated review period is up to six months; and (ii) the filing fees payable are based on a percentage of the merging parties' turnover, and are not capped, such that the filing fees are potentially extremely high,

While an advantage to a CEMAC notification would appear to be that the regime contemplates a 'one-stop-shop' for merger control in the region, at this stage it appears that a CEMAC notification excludes only a Cameroonian filing, as other CEMAC Member States do not yet have actively enforced merger control regimes.³