a tripartite report - Unctad

PREFACE
This comparative assessment report is part of the
voluntary tripartite peer review of competition
policies in the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia
and Zimbabwe. The purpose of this tripartite
peer review is to assess the legal framework and
enforcement experiences in each of the three jurisdictions;
draw lessons and best practices from
each jurisdiction; and examine the value-added of
the harmonization of competition law and its enforcement
in this subregion, as well as increased
cooperation. The national reports review the
competition policy systems in each of the abovementioned
countries, and serve as a basis for the
present comparative assessment report that addresses
pertinent issues from a subregional perspective.
I. INTRODUCTION
The United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and
Zimbabwe have all introduced their competition
law in the mid 1990s prompted by a process of
privatization and liberalization that started in the
late 1980s. After years of experimentation with
a centrally planned economy, the opening up of
ciencies
and slow economic growth. The process
of liberalization is not yet complete and regulatory
restrictions are still widespread, a legacy of colonial
times and socialist tradition. 1
In all the three countries the introduction of competition
law occurred quite early in the process
and by the mid 1990s all of them had an antitrust
law and an active authority in place. The purpose
of these laws was to:
accompany the development of market
mechanisms, making sure that existing dominant
companies, often protected by decades of
protectionism, would not abuse their position by
blocking or delaying the entry of competitors
ensure that markets would not be cartelized and
that anticompetitive mergers would not lead to a
substantial lessening of competition.
advocate competition principles in regulatory
reform
In a way, the reasoning behind the introduction of
antitrust laws in countries trying to liberalize and
PREFACE
improve the workings of the market mechanism is
very much the same as that behind the introduction
of antitrust provisions in the European Union
Treaty back in 1957. Also in Europe the antitrust
laws were meant to make sure that legal or regulatory
protectionism dismantled by the European
Treaty would not be replaced by private competitive
restrictions.
The reference to the European Union in this comparative
review will sometimes be used for helping
the three jurisdictions avoid some of the mistakes
the European Union went through, especially in
its early days. Furthermore, the example of the
European Union may help to evaluate the more
recent institutional developments associated with
the regionalization of antitrust and the setting up
of regional groupings, like COMESA, EAC, SADC,
to which these jurisdictions belong 2 .
II. COMPARATIVE REVIEW
The purpose of the tripartite peer review is to analyze
antitrust laws enforcement experiences of The
United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The objectives pursued are to identify commonalities
and differences and to provide some
feedback on the actions to be undertaken in order
for the competition authorities of these countries
to become more effective. On the substantive
aspects of the law some very useful suggestions
for adjustments are contained in the reports for
the individual countries. Certainly one major improvement
would be for the three jurisdictions to
at least converge on the way legal provisions are
interpreted. This has been the process undertaken
in the European Union where the interpretation
of the substantive provisions of the law has constantly
evolved through case law developments,
new communications and regulatory reform, the
legal provisions remaining always the same since
would more often be the European Commission
and then member States would follow, but sometimes
member States would take the lead and the
European Commission would follow. Having the
same type of practices prohibited everywhere did
allow the development of a standard and helped
very much in the process of judicial review. For all
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COMPARATIVE ASSESMENT