First, the Namibian competition authorities have finally published monetary merger notification thresholds, a decade after the coming into force of the relevant provisions of competition law. These thresholds should be borne in mind by any IP-owning business which seeks to absorb a competitor, and presumably by any joint venture vehicle to which the commercial operations of two or more enterprises are assigned.
Secondly, criteria have been set out for determining a dominant position in the market: this is a precondition for establishing whether an abuse of dominant position has taken place. Given the ease with which the exercise of an intellectual property monopoly in a small economy where there are few or no competitors can be characterised as an abuse, IP proprietors and exclusive licensees should take care to check the new criteria out.
