Parliament Tentatively Approves Amendments to Competition Protection Law

The House of Representatives, headed by Hanafi Jabali, approved, in principle, a draft law submitted by the government to amend some provisions of the Competition Protection and Prevention of Monopolistic Practices Law during the plenary session held on Sunday.

The draft law aims to confront the increase in economic concentration operations in its various forms, by extending prior control over economic concentration operations in order to enhance the effectiveness of the law as an important tool for advancing economic development and encouraging and attracting investments.

This comes in addition to its aim to enhance competition in the markets by creating more efficient economic entities for the benefit of the consumer; to achieve prior control over economic concentrations, and to establish a general framework for monitoring operations harmful to competition to enable competition protection agencies to intervene to limit the effects of these harmful operations. 

The draft law also works to reduce economic concentrations that affect the structure of the market, and result in the establishment of monopolistic entities or strengthening the control of already existing entities, which leads to creating obstacles to entering the market for new competitors or expanding it, which limits the ability of existing competitors to compete with the dominant entity and prevents the flow of domestic and foreign investments. 

The draft law also aims to enhance competition in the markets by creating more efficient economic entities, which benefits the final consumer.

It seeks to monitor operations harmful to competition through enabling competition protection agencies to intervene to limit the effects of these harmful operations before they are completed and to strengthen control over economic concentrations that would affect the market by limiting, restricting or harming competition freedom. 

Moreover, it took into account the speed of the procedures used to examine economic concentrations, and to be clear and transparent in line with the state's plan to encourage investments and reduce bureaucracy.