Competition and Regulatory Economics
Competition and Regulatory Economics
Overview
As the leading provider of competition and regulatory economics services in Africa, Genesis has an unmatched breadth and depth of skills and experience. Blue-chip companies, regulators and competition authorities across Africa routinely rely on us for expert economics advice and input.
We have worked on most major competition and regulatory matters in South Africa and we have been involved in key matters across multiple other African countries including Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Leading The Team
Areas of Expertise
Damages quantification
High Court litigation and arbitration proceedings
Competition economics
As the leading provider of competition economics services in Africa, Genesis Analytics has an unmatched breadth and depth of skills and experience. Blue-chip companies across Africa routinely rely on us for expert advice and support when they interact with competition authorities. We also work extensively with regulators and competition authorities, giving us a position of trust based on a strong reputation for providing robust and independent expert economic views.
Regulatory economics and accounting
Extensive regulatory oversight is a key feature of a number of critical sectors such as energy, telecommunications, transport, water, healthcare, financial services and broadcasting. The prevalence of regulatory interventions in these sectors is largely driven by concerns of market failure and for the protection of consumers. These sectors provide important social services or products, and effective regulation is critical to facilitate the achievement of social goals such as access to services and greater affordability.
Communications and broadcasting
We work with governments and regulators to cut through the complexities of digital markets and ensure that digital policy and regulation are fit for purpose, striking the optimal balance between intervention and innovation. Our work includes all aspects of governance and economic regulation including competition, digital rights, data protection and privacy, consumer protection, e-commerce, economic structure and digital trade.
Damages and other litigation
We offer the full spectrum of expert economic support and advice in litigated and contested processes. Our diverse litigation experience enables us to provide rigorous and legally defendable analysis, advice and testimony for clients in a variety of legal processes, including damages, international trade disputes, and other arbitration and High Court proceedings.
Our reputation as leading economic experts in these areas is built on rigorous, fact-based economic analysis that is ethical, persuasive, stands up to close legal scrutiny and retains credibility in the eyes of the courts.
Areas of expertise
Energy
The energy sector has become a source of significant policy and regulatory focus in countries across Africa. Energy security and reliability – and in some cases failed energy reform – represent important challenges for economic growth and development.
This includes South Africa where the energy crisis has required careful policy review to determine the optimal long-term market structure across diverse sources of energy, as well as short-term remedies to resolve more immediate challenges.
Trade
For more than a decade Genesis has been engaged in the increasingly complex international trade landscape. This evolving area presents significant risks and opportunities for consumers, companies and governments.
We remain the provider of choice for most top law firms, government and the private sector when they need to retain expert economic advice to deliver robust solutions on critical trade related matters.
Projects
Impact assessment of price on Eskom electricity consumption
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) appointed Genesis to assess and understand the economic impact of Eskom’s MYPD4 Application, and assess the price elasticity of demand for electricity for the utility's direct and municipal customers.
Related Focus Areas
Agriculture and agribusiness
Africa’s agricultural sector is critical to sustainable economic development. It supports economic opportunities in rural communities, the alleviation of poverty and plays an essential role in food security. Genesis works across the public-private interface for governments, donors, philanthropic and private sector clients.
Unlocking the sector’s potential requires a combination of political will, enabling regulatory frameworks, improved access to finance, skills investment and climate change adaptation. An understanding of these interlocking factors underpins our approach to programme design and implementation.
Financial Services Strategy
Our Financial Services team has completed more than 1000 projects across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East since 2001. We work with leading financial institutions to address their challenges, unlock value for their stakeholders and shape the future of the industry.
Our team understands the evolving technology and market structures, economics and regulatory trends across all segments of the financial services sector. Our distinct approach is characterised by deep specialisation and rigorous analysis based on a strong economics foundation.
Health
We work with our clients to develop solutions aimed at improving the health of populations throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.
Our region faces the challenges of the quadruple burden of disease, which includes both communicable and non-communicable diseases, as well as violence and injury.
Coupled with this are relatively weak health systems, heavy reliance on donor funding and inequitable public and private sectors. Within this context, we provide experts with decades of experience in the design, implementation, costing and evaluation of health programmes, and strengthening of sustainable health systems.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure holds the key to development in Africa but there has been limited success in meeting the challenge. At Genesis Analytics we offer the tools and expertise to strengthen infrastructure planning, identify sources of finance, and enable project development efficiently and effectively.
The development of infrastructure in South Africa often relates to key regulated sectors such as energy, which includes electricity, piped gas and petroleum pipelines. Genesis’ regulatory economics expertise in policy and regulatory design, regulatory accounting, and tariff determination is often an essential element in understanding and implementing infrastructure projects in these sectors.
Manufacturing
The manufacturing sector ranges from industrial to fast-moving consumer goods. Genesis has extensive experience in providing services across this sector, from the manufacture of steel, cement, chemicals, resins and fertilizers to credit cards, supermarkets, cereals and tyres.
Working in this sector requires that economists quickly come to grips with technical issues of production and use of the products. At a retail and consumer level, economists must develop an understanding of competition dynamics that are often based on product differentiation through branding and marketing. They also need to understand the socio-economic impact of the sector.
In addition to the competition economics and international trade work, our Applied Behavioural Economics practice is also active in this sector. We understand that humans routinely use biases and heuristics to make decisions, and that this often results in atypical or unexpected outcomes. We have proven that businesses can derive considerable value from designing for the fallibility of human decision-making, especially in the consumer-goods sector – whether that be in product design, marketing, sales, service, channels, or other functional areas.