Muscat – The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion (MOCIP) said that the Competition Protection and Monopoly Prevention Law promulgated by Royal Decree 67/2014 clarified that dominance is the ability of a person or group of persons working together directly or indirectly to control or influence the relevant market, including the acquisition of more than 35 percent of the size of that market.
The Center for Competition and Monopoly Prevention said the basic criterion for domination is control or influence in the concerned market, whether this control is issued by a person or several persons practicing a commercial or economic activity, and a person can be considered dominant in one of the two cases as stated in the executive regulations issued by virtue of the ministerial decision No18/2021.
The first is the acquisition of more than 35 percent of the market share and this percentage is calculated either by the volume of sales or the volume of revenue or both.
The ability of its competitors at that time to limit that effect on prices or the volume of supply of products, during a specific period of time and in a specific geographical area determined by the case under study or demand.
Marwa bint Rashid al Alawi, a legal researcher at the Department of Prohibited Practices at the Center for Competition Protection and Anti-Monopoly Prevention at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion, said that the factors that must be put in place when assessing dominance are mentioned in Article (5) of the executive regulations issued under Ministerial Resolution 18/2021 and are represented in: The extent to which a person is able to influence the price or quantity of products or services in the relevant market independently of his competitors during a certain period of time.
She indicated that the dominant person’s practice of one of the practices of domination or a similar practice that leads to the same purpose exposes him to legal accountability, noting that examining cases of domination can be moved based on a complaint or communication, or that the ministry initiates it on its own.
