EGYPT Law and Practice Contributed by: Alex Saleh, Asad Ahmad, Khaled al-Khashab and Mounir Hany, GLA & Company
7.4 Co-Operation With Other Jurisdictions The ECA has been implementing several protocols with various jurisdictions, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and many Arab states, to establish a cooperative ecosystem. In 2019, the ECA signed a bilateral institutional part - nership with the German Federal Ministry for Econom - ic Affairs and Energy and the Federal German Compe - tition Authority. This has contributed to strengthening the institutional and enforcement capacity of the ECA through knowledge sharing and internal capacity building. The successful co-operation incentivised both sides to renew the Joint Declaration of Intent in 2020 to establish a more extensive level of co-oper - ation, including hands-on case-handling experience sharing, policy review and guidelines development, as well as more practical on-the-job work co-ordination and knowledge sharing. The ECA also co-operates with the Common Mar - ket for Eastern and Southern Africa (the “COMESA”) Competition Commission regarding merger notifica - tions. Article 25 (6) of the 2004 COMESA Competition Regulations states that the Commission may notify member states subject to a merger and request their written opinions. In terms of requests from the COME - SA Competition Commission, the ECA reviewed 21 notifications and examined the potential impact of the mergers on the Egyptian market. 8. Appeals and Judicial Review 8.1 Access to Appeal and Judicial Review As a general rule, ECA decisions are administrative in nature and can be appealed before the administrative court (unless the matter is referred to the prosecutor, the criminal court or, more specifically, the criminal courts specialised in considering economic crimes). Specifically, if the ECA decision involves a rejection of the “economic concentration”, the decision could be appealed. 8.2 Typical Timeline for Appeals A rejection of an “economic concentration” must be appealed within 30 days of a notification of the deci - sion being made. From a practical perspective (and
interest or national security reasons. The Executive Regulations do not elaborate further on this.
6. Ancillary Restraints and Related Transactions 6.1 Clearance Decisions and Separate Notifications To date, the scope of the Amendments and the Execu - tive Regulations does not clearly indicate that related arrangements (ancillary restraints) are covered in an ECA clearance. Further guidance on this is expected to be developed by the ECA in the coming months. 7. Third-Party Rights, Confidentiality and Cross-Border Co-Operation 7.1 Third-Party Rights The Egyptian Competition Law states that the ECA may seek the opinions of experts. However, these experts will not have any decision-making powers. 7.2 Contacting Third Parties This is part of the upcoming ECA scheme. However, there are no provisions under the Egyptian Competi - tion Law or the Executive Regulations addressing this. It is yet to be considered under a new batch of ECA guidelines, if at all. 7.3 Confidentiality ECA employees have a duty to keep information and sources confidential. This information and data (as well as the relevant sources) will not be used for any purposes other than those for which they were sub - mitted. Commercially sensitive information is not usually required for the purpose of the notification. Any ECA employee having access to commercial information of any entity is generally prohibited from working for a competitor of the concerned party for a period of two years from the date the employee gained access to the confidential information.
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