Morocco’s Competition Council carried out its first-ever unannounced search and seizure operation in Casablanca in October, with police support and authorization from the public prosecutor, according to the council’s 2024 annual report.
To carry out its mission, the council conducted more than 200 hearings with companies, regulators, and ministries, and sent out over 400 requests for information.
Nearly 90% of cases on concentration control were resolved, with 20 still pending at the end of the year.
The council also forced a major restructuring of the electronic payments sector after ruling against practices by the Interbank Electronic Payment Center (CMI),
The decision obliged CMI and its shareholder banks to change their operations, leading to the dismantling of CMI’s acquiring business and opening the market to new players.
The case came after concerns were raised about anti-competitive behavior toward NAPS SA, a rival in the payments market. By making the commitments of CMI and its banks legally binding, the council cleared the way for payment institutions to compete more fairly, reshaping how the sector operates.
This ruling was one of the highlights of the council’s 2024 activity. According to its annual report, the body issued 174 rulings and opinions across different sectors. Most of its work focused on overseeing economic concentrations, which made up over 93% of its decisions.
The council also gave three formal opinions last year: two it launched on its own, analyzing competition in the electricity sector and in fruit and vegetable markets, and one requested by the House of Representatives about animal feed.
Beyond advisory work, the council opened 12 investigations on its own initiative and ruled on nine contentious cases.
The Council also gave the green light to 162 merger and acquisition operations, most of these deals were approved during the first phase of review, with only a few requiring special conditions or deeper investigation.
The Council explained that many companies see mergers as a way to improve service quality, this was the case for about 22% of the deals, or to diversify markets, which accounted for 18%.
Other mergers were aimed at creating synergies, financing ambitious projects with strong growth potential, boosting production capacity, or expanding investment portfolios.
To make the process smoother, the Council introduced a simplified and faster procedure for handling merger requests. By the end of 2024, 62% of the cases went through this fast-track system, while the rest were handled normally.
Out of the 162 cases reviewed, 154 operations were cleared in the first stage. Five of them were given special exemptions from the suspension rules. Three deals were approved with binding commitments to address competition concerns, and one was cleared after a detailed second-phase review.
Meanwhile, four cases were considered non-notifiable because they didn’t fall under the legal definition of a concentration.
When looking at sectors, services and industry dominated the landscape, accounting together for about half of all approved deals. Health and social services came next with 11%, while transport and logistics followed with 7%.
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