Recently, some of the leading, often dominant tech companies – companies such as Alphabet, Meta, and Booking.com, which the EU has found to have engaged in exploitative and exclusionary conduct in European digital markets – have been found to have engaged in similar conduct across the African continent. To ensure competitive, contestable digital markets, African countries are considering the adoption of a Digital Market Competition Regulation (DMCR) under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Competition Protocol (CP) Article 11. Some of the leading proposals for such a DMCR are very similar to the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA).
Whether the EU DMA or some other model best addresses the key challenges faced by African countries in digital markets, and which model should therefore serve as the blueprint for the governance of digital markets in Africa, is an open question that deserves vigorous debate.
Participation in this project will allow students to gain an understanding of the distinct characteristics of digital markets in Africa, including the specific opportunities and challenges they face, through a series of focused tech-specific case studies. Students will also be introduced to alternative approaches to regulating competition in digital markets, based in particular on the contrasting EU and U.S. experiences, presented to them in an interactive format, including through a debate between and with EU and U.S. experts. This understanding and exposure to competing approaches, gained during the first days of the project week, will empower and enable participating students to develop, in the second half of the week, targeted proposals for the better regulation of (and governance of competition in) African digital markets.
