Kenya Introduces New Competition Rules Targeting Uber, Bolt and Digital Platforms
Kenya is advancing a Competition Bill that would impose new rules on digital platforms including Uber and Bolt, targeting data dominance and algorithmic market power in the gig economy. The legislation could materially reshape operating conditions for ride-hailing and other platform businesses in the country.
Kenya's Platforms: the rule that doesn't need a monopoly to bite
Most competition law asks one question: does this company own the market? Kenya's new Bill asks a different one — can this platform make your business unviable if you leave it?
That shift matters. Uber and Bolt don't hold a monopoly in Nairobi. But a driver locked into one app's pricing algorithm, with no realistic way to rebuild their income elsewhere, is dependent in every practical sense — just not one traditional law recognises.
The concept of "superior bargaining position" is the provision worth watching. If it holds, regulators gain the power to intervene in platform-rider and platform-merchant relationships without waiting for a monopoly to form.
For Africa's growing class of gig workers and platform-dependent small businesses, that's the protection the old rules were never built to offer.
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- Kenya Wants New Competition Rules for Uber, Bolt and Other Digital Platforms · techtrendske.co.ke · T2