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Fez – Morocco’s Competition Council and the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM) presented on January 25 a guide of compliance programs to competition law within companies and professional organizations.
The guide is aimed at helping companies and professional organizations in setting up a competition law compliance program. It will assist them either on a stand-alone basis or by its integration into a more global policy of compliance with Moroccan laws on corruption, the financing of illicit activities, money laundering, and the protection of personal data.
During a meeting organized to present the new guide, Ahmed Rahhou, president of the Competition Council, noted that this initiative aims to strengthen the competitive culture within companies operating in Morocco. He explained that the guide will provide procedures and tools for monitoring and tracking to identify risks for better prevention.
The CGEM’s meeting with the Competition Council is part of their partnership to create a framework that promotes the creation of a free and innovative market that benefits businesses competitiveness and consumer welfare.
Rahhou said that “the advice given in this guide will allow companies to avoid being in breach of the law and to know their rights and duties especially in terms of competition law.”
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The document will also allow companies to bring practices to the Council’s attention that they believe are harmful to their market activities, so that the situation can be cleaned up if necessary.
Rahhou also spoke about the Council‘s engagement methods and referral procedures, particularly in the areas of economic concentration control and anti-competitive practices enforcement.
Chakib Alj, the president of the CGEM, stated that the meeting was part of an educational and listening approach.
He expressed concerns over “the rules relating to the thresholds of declarations in operations of restructuring, acquisitions, mergers, intra-group in particular or even simple development operations.”
The goal of this initiative is to disseminate best practices and discuss issues related to competition “which are unfortunately unknown to businesses,” particularly very small, small, and medium enterprises, he explained.
Alj stressed the need to create a fast track for transactions that do not represent a major risk, such as those involving publicly traded companies and overseas operations in Morocco.
“The CGEM will allocate efforts to make this handbook available to as many economic operators as possible,” he noted, highlighting the confederation’s keenness “especially in times of difficulty, [not to] abandon efforts because of the rigidity of some standards.”
