SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI DIRITTO ED ECONOMIA
Eslam Mostafa Mohamed Saleh Soliman (Mansoura University; The American University in Cairo)
Abstract
In 1990, Egypt started in collaboration with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund structural economic reforms aiming at following the track of a market-oriented economy rather than its four-decade state-directed one. As a result, there was a need to reconsider the role of government in such an economic system; many questions were raised on the scope of government intervention and the mechanisms of such interventions. One of the most vital questions was how the government would be able to develop a competitive market where government-business policies are fair and just, access by new market players is not risky, exit from the market is not a source of distortion, and consumers’ rights of wide-located and diversified-based market products are maintained. The final outcome of such a debate was the adoption of Egypt’s Competition Law No. 3 of 2005 which first established The Competition Protection Authority known as The Egyptian Competition Authority “ECA” as an independent authority with financial autonomy. This paper mainly focuses on the impact of the global trend of competition enforcement agencification on Egypt’s competition regime and the role the international institutions played in the establishment and evolution of the ECA, especially its governance and autonomy.