ECA’s Legal Action Against Price Fixing in the Poultry Market

On Saturday 22 February 2025, the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) together with the public prosecution initiated criminal proceedings against 162 broiler chicken producers and the General Union of Poultry Producers for price fixing and related information exchange. The action is part of ECA’s broader efforts to combat price-fixing and monopolistic behavior in the poultry industry and their wider aim to ease price pressure on Egyptian consumers.

Through their investigation the ECA established that the broiler chicken producers coordinated to fix prices they would pay poultry farmers for broiler chickens. This allowed the companies to limit competition amongst them and prevented poultry farmers from selling at proper market prices, a violation of Egyptian law. Furthermore, the ECA found that the companies exchanged confidential commercial information, including details on available quantities and capacity, execution prices, raw material costs, feed prices, demand levels, and other critical market data. The ECA determined that this collusion led to a continuous, unjustified, and excessive increase in prices, which did not reflect actual market value. This allowed the companies to achieve excessive profit margin at the expense of Egyptian consumers.

Moreover, the ECA’s investigation confirmed that the General Union of Poultry Producers played an active role in this cartel. The union used its network of poultry producers to facilitate, encourage, and aid the companies in their anti-competitive practices. The union adhered to the pricing mechanisms established by the violators. Thereby, they reinforced these practices and ensuring that their effect persisted. The union’s actions contributed to increases in poultry farming costs, which led to a significant and unwarranted rise in poultry prices for consumers.

The ECA ordered all parties to immediately cease any coordination on or related to broiler chicken prices. It mandated that selling prices must be determined individually by each producer in accordance with supply and demand mechanisms, and without any coordination among competitors. The ECA referred the matter to the public prosecution, who initiated criminal proceedings against the parties.

This case aligns with ECA’s broader regulatory crackdown on anti-competitive behavior in the poultry and egg market:

• In May 2024, the ECA requested the public prosecution to initiate criminal proceedings against seven of the largest broiler chicken brokers for their agreement to determine the price at which farmers sold live broiler chicken to wholesale traders.
• In September 2024, criminal proceedings were initiated in connection with three horizontal agreements, against 21 of Egypt’s largest table egg producers. All 21 were members of the Table Egg Division affiliated with the General Union of Poultry Producers. They were found to have violated Egyptian antitrust regulations through their agreement to align on sales prices for table egg cartons. 
• In an earlier case the ECA discovered that table egg brokers violated Egyptian law by agreeing among themselves to set the selling price of table eggs. The initial decision was appealed. On 4 February 2025, the Cairo Economic Court of Appeals upheld the ruling against four of the largest table egg brokers.

Following the most recent case, the ECA issued press releases highlighting the country’s leniency program and urging parties who participated price fixing or similar harmful practices to report the incident. For an overview of the Egyptian leniency program see our client brief of 10 February 2023.

The ECA’s investigations into the poultry and egg markets fit into the broader focus of the authority on consumer facing businesses. The Egyptian government seeks to ease price pressures on consumers caused by contractions of the Egyptian economy and outside pressures. In doing so they focus on staple goods to protect the most vulnerable parts of Egyptian society. As part of these affords the ECA has over the past years taken an increased interest in competition law compliance of consumer facing businesses. This saw the ECA going after cartels in the food and beverage, education, and energy sectors.

The focus on consumer price relevant businesses has so far not been noticeable in the ECA’s merger control practice. Effective 1 June 2024 the ECA started enforcing the country’s new pre-closing notification merger control regime. To date filings made have been spread over a broad range of sectors. Also, the ECA has so far not shown a particular interest in or applied increased scrutiny in the review of transactions involving consumer facing industries. Moreover, the ECA has to date not taken enforcement action under the new merger control regime. Hence, we cannot say whether the authority would take a particular interest in consumer facing businesses when investigating gun jumping or failure to notify cases. It remains to be seen how the ECA’s enforcement practice develops.

Still, parties doing business in or contemplating transactions with connection to Egypt should be aware of the ECA’s increased scrutiny. Where parties are engaged in consumer facing industries—and in particular where they provide staple goods and services—parties should expect more extensive inquiries by the authority.