The Unregulated Status of Corporate Groups and Competition Issues in Ethiopia: Abuse of Market Dominance and Anticompetitive Agreements
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Date
2014-03
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Although corporate groups (herein after, CGs) are expanding in the present Ethiopian business
environment, their legal status particularly in the commercial code remained unregulated. They
are now the sources of many legal and practical concerns among the legal actors and legal
institutions of the country. Among such concerns, the legal and practical issues in relation to
anticompetitive practices under the competitive environment and competition regime of Ethiopia
are the major one. Particularly with respect to abuse of market dominance and anticompetitive
agreements, these CGs sparked critical legal issues that can be substantiated by practical
scenarios. But, on the other hand, the present competition law of Ethiopia doesn’t recognize
these CGs and remained within the spirit of the traditional corporate law mentality.
Thus, this study is interested in the examination, discussion and evaluation of the interplay of
these CGs and Ethiopian competition law from legal and practical stand point. Its major
objective is to explore and unveil the competition dimension of these CGs with particular
emphasis on the rules of abuse of market dominance and anticompetitive agreements.
While this study focuses on major CGs of Ethiopia for its general discussion EFFORT and
MIDROC CGs are used as examples of the practical situation on the ground. The study employs
purposive sampling and observation, interview and library research techniques to collect its data
which it will critically discusses, review, evaluate, analyze and interpreted to produce the output.
Accordingly, this study concludes that CGs, despite their negative effect on the market
competition via their acts of abuse of dominance and anticompetitive agreement, they remained
unregulated under the competition law of Ethiopia. As a result this study calls for proper and
timely legal and policy reform in the form of having special laws governing these CGs.
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Keywords
Corporate Groups, Competition Issues in Ethiopia