Page 3 - Weekly highlights 6383

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Weekly highlights

The Competition Council wins its first trial

O CTOBER 31, 2022 was a his-
torical day. The Rabat Court
of Appeal settles an unprece-
dented dispute in competition law. An unprecedented case
related to competition law
And this is not the only exclusivity of has just been decided in the
this file that we had baptized “THE new courthouse in Rabat.
litigation of the first time”. This is a summary proce-
The Association of Chartered Ac- dure, meaning an urgent
countants will ultimately have to pay procedure, to stay the pay-
3 million MAD (275,000 USD). This ment of a fine of 3 million
judicial decision comes following a MAD. The Association of
Chartered Accountants lost
summary procedure initiated in mid- this first round against the
September 2022 by the Association Competition Council. At
of Chartered Accountants. The inte- the same time, an action
rim proceedings sought to urgently on the merits was initiated
defer the execution of a decision of to challenge the decision
the Competition Council. The Asso- of the regulator having
ciation chaired by Amine Baakili was condemned the Association
inflicted, at the end of July 2022, this for anti-competitive prac-
financial penalty for price fixing. A tice. This civil trial was to
start on November 02, 2022
directive of the Association of Char- (Ph. Bziouat)
tered Accountants relating to Time
Budget and Fees was accepted as
evidence of the offence. Said direc-
tive had set a minimum honorary rate health of the Association of Charte- formance is added to the 3 million November 02, 2022. The Association
of 500 MAD/hour (370 USD) exclu- red Accountants? The answer is no, MAD. It was to go live 60 days after of Chartered Accountants challenges
ding taxes for the legal and contrac- a priori, with regard to the position of notification of the regulator’s deci- its conviction for anti-competitive
tual audit. the group of judges made up of three sion. This period has expired, and the practice. The Association included
For the time being, the judges have magistrates and chaired by Rachid counter has been running since Octo- in this procedure the Head of Go-
not yet published their order so that Abdelkbir. ber 02, 2022. The representatives of vernment, the General Secretariat
people know the motivations of the In addition, the Competition Council the corporation will therefore have to of the Government, the Ministry of
judgement rendered. A fundamental had accompanied its financial penal- pay the fine to the General Treasury Finance, and the chartered accoun-
question arose in this trial. Was the ty with a penalty payment of 4,000 of the Kingdom. tants firm IRAC at the origin of the
payment of the fine going to have MAD (370 USD) for each day of Furthermore, the review of the me- complaint before the regulator. o
“serious effects” on the financial delay. This penalty for non-per- rits of the case began on Wednesday, Faiçal FAQUIHI

Compromised competitiveness of “national champions”

W HEN it comes to taxes, 40% Corporate tax rate by group of regions increase in tax rates for some of them.
In the eyes of Salah Grine, chartered
there are two ways to in-
accountant and tax adviser to a parlia-
crease tax revenue, increase
tax rates or broaden the tax base. Overall Africa (16) Asia (22) LAC (29) OECD mentary group, “the increase from 31
The draft budget bill for 2023 has 35% to 35% of the corporate tax rate for
obviously opted for the first solution. large companies would have the effect
Moreover, the upward revision of cor- of putting Morocco against the cur-
porate tax rates is considered to be tax 30% rent of the global trend of lower cor-
harassment since, once again, it has porate tax which is moving towards
not spared the handful of companies a floor rate of 15% and would not
(2%) which provide to the Treasury 25% fail to reduce Morocco’s attractive-
80% of tax revenues generated by this ness for foreign investors who could
tax. Thus, one of the shock measures direct their investments to other des-
will certainly have been the reorga- 20% tinations, or even push them to relo-
nization of the corporate tax scale cate investments already made in
over a four-year schedule. Indeed, it the country”. Salah Grine added that
is planned to apply a corporate tax 15% 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 “this increase in the corporate tax
rate of 20% as the common corporate would make national champions less
tax rate applicable to any profit be- are SMEs. Beyond this amount, the instituting a withholding tax of 10% competitive not only outside but also
low 100 million Dirhams (about 9.13 rate will be 35%. But it is above all versus the 15% currently applied inside the country, due to the many
million USD). In short, it is a single the financial sector that will see its on profits distributed by companies free trade agreements signed by the
rate that will affect most businesses, tax scale explode since it should rise that are subject to the corporate tax Kingdom”.o
the overwhelming majority of which to 40% in 2026. There is also talk of in order to mitigate the impact of the H.E.

Friday 4 November 2022