Competition authority may get sharper teeth to regulate M&A transactions: Proposed amendments to the Competition Act would allow Mona El Garf’s Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) to monitor and sign-off on M&A transactions prior to their execution, said ECA chief Mona El Garf at a workshop on Tuesday. The legislative change would effectively allow the authority to block the transactions if they violate antitrust laws in a manner that would be familiar to readers who have worked in European Union or North American regulatory environments.

Under current legislation, the ECA can only review an M&A after contracts have been signed and only if their size exceeds EGP 100 mn. Trade and Industry Minister Tarek Kabil, who attended the workshop, expressed his support for the legislation, saying the ECA should be granted more authority to curb anti-competitive behavior and attempts to cobble-together a monopoly. M&A activity, the minister noted, was up nearly 30% in Egypt in 2015 and accounted for 14% of regional merger activity last year.

The proposed amendments will be presented to the business community for feedback this month, Al Borsa reports. The risk: El Garf is far and away one of Egypt’s most competent civil servants (we can’t even call her a bureaucrat), and longtime readers know we’re fans of her judgment. The question is how deeply embedded that wisdom is in the fabric of the regulator before it is given more sweeping powers.

El Garf also stated that the ECA is currently investigating allegations of antitrust violations in the healthcare and insurance sectors with specifying which companies were being looked at. Back in June, the ECA had announced that an MoU inked between the Egyptian Insurance Association and the Healthcare Companies Association violates the nation’s antitrust act, claiming the agreement prevents consumers from choosing the coverage and companies they want based on price and quality.