Look at the battles between anti-trust authorities with technology behemoths such as Facebook, Google and Amazon.
The fight Chinese authorities have been having with Alibaba is yet another indicator of the changing times.
When you look at the trends, the picture you see is that anti-trust authorities are no longer obsessed with breaking up companies into smaller pieces.
Safaricom headquarters on Nairobi’s Waiyaki Way. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA I just don’t think that the government has thought through a clear strategy on how it wants the mobile telephone sector to grow and evolve, especially after it torpedoed the proposed merger of Telkom Kenya and Airtel Networks two years ago.
Have we all agreed that the long-term interest of the country and of consumers of mobile services is to have a consolidated sector with one strong national champion?
Are we satisfied that the consumer of mobile services enjoys adequate protection in terms of price and quality of service?
Let’s face it, we don’t have an anti-trust framework worth talking about. Competition regulation just doesn’t happen in Kenya and anti-trust laws are honoured more in breach than practice.
The last time the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) tried its hand at implementing a new competition regime for the telecommunications sector, it came up with anachronistic ideas that had long been abandoned by many anti-trust authorities.
In this day and age and in an environment of globalisation and global supply chains, you will be laughed out of town when — as a regulator or anti-trust authority — you approach competition regulation by placing emphasis on concepts such as ‘ market dominance’, ‘ abuse of market power’ or ‘concentration of market power’.
Look at the battles between anti-trust authorities with technology behemoths such as Facebook, Google and Amazon.
The fight Chinese authorities have been having with Alibaba is yet another indicator of the changing times. When you look at the trends, the picture you see is that anti-trust authorities are no longer obsessed with breaking up companies into smaller pieces ostensibly to correct concentration of economic power.Instead, and as far as technology companies are concerned, anti-trust authorities are more keen to secure and grant equal access to platforms to competing companies. As a tech company, you are most likely to be punished when you are found offering similar services which your competitors are offering on your platform.In my view, we are at a point where our priority now must be […]
