In the past two years, the Middle East and North Africa ("MENA") region has witnessed very active developments in the area of merger control: new regimes have come into effect (and others are under development), several competition authorities have published new guidelines, regulators have increased enforcement efforts, and merger filings are still on the rise. In this WAMS update, White & Case provides insights specifically on recent developments and merger control trends in Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia.
Egypt amended its competition law with new mandatory premerger filing requirements, which went into effect in June 2024.1 Since then, the Egyptian Competition Authority ("ECA") has been actively enforcing the new reporting regime and has published guidelines and responses to frequently asked questions to help stakeholders comply with the new rules.
It is estimated that the ECA has reviewed at least 115 filings between June 2024 and September 2025. The results of the filings so far are as follows:
The Egyptian merger control regime provides for a 30-business day merger review period and, if the transaction raises competitive issues, the possibility of a 60-business day second phase review. Alternatively, for transactions that meet certain conditions (e.g., a joint venture with no local nexus), the rules provide an alternative simplified procedure that requires only a 20-business day review period. These statutory periods start only after the ECA deems the filing complete, which can take time if the ECA issues requests for additional information or documents.
Egyptian Review Periods. While there is no data available yet on the ECA's average merger review period, parties are advised to prepare for longer waiting periods from the initial filing submission until the ECA issues its decision than the formal statutory timelines would suggest.
View fulle image: Egypt Merger Filings and Resolutions (PDF)
Morocco has been an active antitrust jurisdiction for several years, with a notable increase in activity since 2023.
In 2023, the Moroccan government published new regulations governing its filing regime, which among other things, introduced a new local nexus test for Moroccan filings that excludes filing requirements for transactions where the target entity has no link to Morocco. As shown below, this new nexus condition has helped to reduce the number of filings submitted to the Moroccan Competition Council ("MCC"). This change likely helps focus the MCC's resources on more relevant transactions.
The MCC has also issued substantial fines against both global and local businesses for merger control violations of Moroccan law in the last two years.3 White & Case is aware of at least three transactions where the parties were fined approximately €1 million for failing to file a notifiable transaction, and one fine against a global pharmaceutical company in an amount equal to 2.5% of its local revenue. The maximum penalty for failure to file a notifiable transaction is 5% of the violating company's local revenue.
White & Case analyzed MCC data to track trends in merger filings in Morocco. As shown in the WAMS chart below, merger filings in Morocco saw a substantial spike in 2023, and a drop in 2024. In 2022, there were 142 merger filings in Morocco, 204 in 2023, and 162 in 2024. Thes numbers show a 43% increase in merger filings in 2023 over 2022 and a 20% drop from 2023 to 2024.