The East African Community Ushers in a New Competition and Mergers Regulatory Regime

The EAC comprises 8 partner states (Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda). All the 8 partner states, save for Tanzania, are also members of COMESA (the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa), which is a regional economic community comprising 21 member states. Tanzania is a member of SADC (the Southern African Development Community).

As such, all the EAC member states are currently already subject to anti-trust regulations through national competition laws and/or the regional COMESA competition law regime.

Whilst regional integration in East Africa and across the African continent is much needed and the EAC has made commendable strides towards achieving this noble objective, the operationalisation of the EAC competition regime also introduces an additional layer of regulatory frameworks which will apply when doing business in the region. It is not yet clear how any jurisdictional overlaps will be dealt with.

Background
The EAC Competition Act, which was first enacted in 2006, laid the legal framework for a unified competition framework within the EAC. However, despite having been enacted nearly two decades ago, the EAC Authority has remained largely inactive until now. In 2024, an amendment Bill was passed introducing various key changes to the 2006 law. In mid-2025, a raft of regulations, rules and guidelines were enacted to give substantive effect to the law and to assist in its operationalisation.

Scope and Key Features
From 1 November 2025, the EAC Authority is expected to exercise “exclusive jurisdiction” (note that despite this wording, it remains unclear how jurisdictional overlaps with national laws and the COMESA laws will be addressed) over cross-border mergers within the EAC region if the following thresholds are met:

1. the higher of the combined turnover or asset value of the parties in EAC is at least USD 35 million; and
2. at least two parties involved in the transaction have a combined turnover or assets of USD 20 million within EAC,
   unless each party to the merger achieves at least two-thirds of its aggregate turnover or assets in one single EAC Partner State.

Notably, the EAC competition regime will be suspensory, and a merger that meets the filing thresholds is prohibited from proceeding without the approval of the EAC Authority.

Filing Fees
The EAC Authority has prescribed merger filing fees ranging from USD 45,000 to 100,000, depending on the parties’ combined assets and turnover values.

What This Means for Businesses
In the last few years, the number of national and regional competition law regimes in the region and across the African continent has continued to grow. Whilst historically, countries such as Kenya and Tanzania have had active competition law regimes (with Zanzibar also having a separate regime from mainland Tanzania), in the more recent past, other countries in the region (such as DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, amongst others) have also developed or operationalised their national regimes.

Early in the deal process, investors pursuing transactions in the region will need to determine the specific competition filings required under the various applicable regimes and navigate the increasingly complex national and regional competition frameworks.

The EAC Authority has clarified that any cross-border mergers already initiated or pending before a national competition authority or other relevant competition body within an EAC Partner State prior to the publication of the EAC Gazette Notice will be concluded by those respective authorities. However, given that the notice is dated 1 July 2025 and the EAC Authority will only begin receiving applications on 1 November 2025, it remains unclear how any transactions entered in the intervening period will be handled.

We are currently undertaking a more comprehensive analysis of the new regime and will prepare a more comprehensive client briefing. In the meantime, we recommend that parties seek specific legal advice for any ongoing or prospective matters.

Should you have any questions regarding the information in this legal alert, please do not hesitate to contact Anne Kiunuhe or Dominic Rebelo.

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Contributor
Jackson Makori – Associate