A routine batch of approvals
Around 13 September 2026, the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) cleared seven merger, acquisition and joint-venture transactions under its pre-closing merger control regime, as Daily News Egypt reported. The report's list includes Indo Suez's majority stake in Fanar Foods, Genel Energy's indirect takeover of Capricorn Energy, Bain Capital's indirect stake in Everllence, a General Warehouses–ROSHN joint venture, Sun Pharma–Organon, a Casper Holdco–Syngenta joint venture and a Springer Nature acquisition. We could not confirm from the reporting that any of these is a digital-platform deal, and none appears to be. We take them as a window onto how Egypt actually supervises platforms: through the ordinary competition toolkit, with no Digital Markets Act (DMA) equivalent.
The case for a DMA, stated fairly
The strongest argument for a DMA-style regime is speed and predictability. The EU's Digital Markets Act sets objective criteria for designating gatekeepers, lets the Commission designate them within 45 working days of notification, and backs conduct rules with fines of up to 10% of worldwide turnover, rising to 20% for repeated infringements. Proponents argue that ordinary abuse-of-dominance cases take years, by which time a tipping market has already tipped. A bright-line list also reduces uncertainty about who is covered. Those are real advantages for a jurisdiction with entrenched global platforms.
What Egypt has instead
Egypt's ECA issued digital-markets guidelines in October 2025. According to a Mondaq summary of the guidelines, they create no new legal obligations. They explain how the ECA will apply existing law to platforms. They identify structural features such as multi-sided platforms, network effects, data access, scale and scope economies, zero pricing and multi-homing. They also list conduct that may raise concerns under the abuse-of-dominance and restrictive-agreement provisions: tying, predatory pricing, self-preferencing, discrimination against business users, denial of access, broad price-parity clauses and geo-blocking.
Two features matter most. First, dominance is still presumed above a 25% market share, but the ECA says it will also weigh non-price metrics such as active users and time spent, because revenue understates the position of a free service. Second, the guidelines flag that the ECA may review "killer acquisitions" of emerging rivals after closing, even below merger thresholds. That is the nearest Egyptian analogue to the DMA's concentration-notification duty for gatekeepers, and it runs through merger control rather than a separate regime.
Why guidelines are the better starting point
We think this is the more proportionate design for Egypt today, for three reasons.
- Fit. The DMA was built around a handful of very large gatekeepers. A domestic market with smaller platforms risks a regime that either designates almost no one or catches firms that are still contestable.
- Evidence. Effects-based tests, which ask whether conduct harms competition, can distinguish self-preferencing that hurts users from product integration that helps them. Per se bans cannot.
- Innovation. Ex ante obligations carry compliance costs that fall hardest on firms just above any threshold. Guidelines let the ECA signal its priorities without freezing product design.
The weakness is that guidelines bind no one. The ECA must still win each case under Articles 7 and 8, and a platform can contest every step. Pro-innovation does not mean no enforcement; it means enforcement that can survive scrutiny.
The pending reform is the real test
Parliament approved amendments to Competition Law No. 3 of 2005 on 24 April 2026. According to a JD Supra summary of the White & Case analysis, the bill still needs the President's approval, and takes effect three months after that. It would give the ECA technical, financial and administrative independence, and let its board impose fines directly, with appeals to a new Grievance Committee and then an administrative court. Fines for cartels and abuse would reach 15% of revenue from the infringing conduct. Merger thresholds would rise to EGP 2.5 billion in combined Egyptian turnover or assets, with at least two parties above EGP 500 million each. We could not confirm whether ratification has since occurred; the last reporting we found treated it as pending.
The summary describes no digital-specific provisions in the amendments. That matters, because a higher notification threshold could let small but strategically important platform acquisitions escape notification. The post-closing review power for killer acquisitions would then carry more of the load, and its legal footing under the reformed statute should be made explicit.
What to watch
The design is sound if three things happen. The amendments should be ratified and published with the review power over below-threshold deals intact. The ECA should publish reasoned decisions in digital cases so the guidelines gain precedent. And the new direct-fining power should come with real appeal rights, since an agency that investigates, decides and fines needs a credible check. If those hold, Egypt can supervise platforms through merger review and abuse cases without importing a gatekeeper regime that was designed for a different market. If they do not, pressure for a DMA-style list will grow, and the ECA will have given up the strongest argument against one.
The September approvals show the system working on ordinary deals. Platform deals will be the test of whether the toolkit is enough.