Competition policy provides firms with the right conditions and incentives to perform efficiently and innovate, to the ultimate benefit of consumers, the national economy and society. A competitive economic environment helps boost economic growth and increase living standards, thereby also contributing to reduce inequality. It stimulates competitiveness by giving businesses incentives to be more productive and reduce their prices, to better respond to customers’ needs and to be more innovative. Furthermore, it motivates firms to supply internationally competitive products and services and to upgrade in global value chains.
Competition authorities tackle unlawful agreements between competitors intended to raise prices as well as abusive practices by dominant firms to exclude smaller, innovative or more efficient companies from the market. At the same time, competition authorities promote a level playing field in markets by advocating for the removal of restrictions in laws and regulations, and by prohibiting or imposing remedies on restrictive mergers.
To better achieve these objectives, competition guidelines are common instruments adopted by competition authorities worldwide. Such documents aim to articulate competition authorities’ enforcement policy and approach with respect to various provisions of their competition laws, including both substantive and procedural elements. As such, they provide guidance on the application of competition law to the authority’ officials, market players, other government agencies, the Judiciary, the legal community, and society.
Guidelines are of fundamental importance to companies. They enable firms to assess their position and behaviour by applying the same criteria as the administrative authority. In the eyes of businesses, guidelines increase the transparency of administrative action, help to clarify the scope of certain provisions as interpreted by the authority, create legitimate expectations, e.g. concerning consistency in the application of the competition rules, and thus increase legal certainty.
The OECD has a long tradition of reviewing competition law and policy regimes in jurisdictions across the world and providing recommendations for further improvement to policymakers and competition authorities. In the 2022 OECD Peer Review of Competition Law and Policy in Tunisia (hereafter the Peer Review), the OECD reviewed and compared Tunisia’s competition law and practices with international best practices and identified areas for improvement and reform. The need to develop public guidelines to enhance legal certainty and predictability of action by the Tunisian competition authorities was among the 65 recommendations made by the peers. This report builds on the previous analysis, reviewing Tunisia’s draft merger guidelines and provides insights for the Tunisian authorities to consider when developing guidelines on setting fines, leniency programmes and compliance programmes.
This report aims to contribute to Tunisia’s ongoing endeavours to promote competition within its economy. Other initiatives include the OECD’s 2019 competition assessment of the country’s wholesale and retail trade sectors, and road and maritime freight transport, the OECD’s 2022 Peer Review of Tunisia’s Competition Law and Policy, the OECD 2023 competition assessment of the tourism sector and the OECD 2023 competition market study of the retail banking sector.