2024-07-06 21:22:03
This report covers the various areas of competence of the Council, as provided for by Article 166 of the Constitution, the provisions of Law No. 104-12 relating to freedom of prices and competition and Law No. 20-13 relating to the Competition Council, as amended and supplemented, as well as by the texts adopted for their application, indicates this report.
In terms of decision-making output, the preventive control of economic concentrations represented, in volume, the bulk of the deliberative activity of the Competition Council with a total of 142 decisions rendered, or more than 78% of all decisions and opinions rendered in 2022, specifies the same source.
The remainder is made up of decisions issued in terms of anti-competitive practices, representing 19% of the total, as well as consultative activity (2%), the report says, adding that overall, this distribution corresponds to what is customary in competition authorities at the comparative level.
In terms of litigation, the year 2022 was exceptional for the Competition Council, because for the first time since its creation, the Council activated its sanctioning power provided for by the aforementioned Law No. 104-12.
It issued 31 decisions, imposing sanctions for a total amount of 72.064 million dirhams (MDH) in response to anti-competitive practices noted during the investigation of a complaint received by the Competition Council, failures to notify economic concentration operations, examined in the context of 3 ex officio referrals and failures to notify economic concentration operations, examined in the context of 27 requests for regularization.
In addition, the Council recalls the opening of a procedure for the regularization of economic concentration operations carried out between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2021, without prior notification to the Competition Council.
With regard to the opinions issued by the Council as part of its advisory mission, 1 opinion was issued in response to a request for an opinion from the Head of Government and 3 were initiated by the Council on the basis of ex officio referrals.
The analysis of the flow of cases processed by the Competition Council in 2022 revealed the addition of 213 new cases to the remainder inherited from previous years, while 184 cases were closed.
Also, this analysis revealed 2 referrals inherited from 2020 and 13 files from 2021, 9 of which relate to requests for authorization of economic concentrations.
In terms of liquidation of the stock of economic concentration files, the balance sheet at the end of 2022 shows a liquidation ratio of 84%.
However, as of the end of December 2022, there are still 28 applications for authorisation of economic concentration operations currently being processed, including one operation referred back for in-depth examination.
According to the report, the investigation services, in accordance with the provisions of Article 16 of Law No. 20-13 relating to the Competition Council and Articles 18, 19 and 20 of the implementing decree of Law No. 104-12, carried out several investigative acts including in particular hearings, requests for information and market tests.
Thus, in order to examine the requests for authorisation of notified economic concentration operations and assess their potential effects on the competitive positioning of the parties and the competitive structure of the relevant markets defined, these investigation services held more than 280 hearings during which, in addition to the representatives of the notifying and concerned parties, the representatives of the ministerial departments responsible for supervising the sectors to which the markets concerned relate and of the bodies responsible for their regulation, as well as the various private stakeholders in the sectors and industries concerned, were heard, indicates the Competition Council.
And to note that since the declaration of the state of health emergency, the majority of hearings organized by the Directorate of Instructions have been held by videoconference.
2024-07-06 21:22:03