Cartels and Enforcement is a unit housed within the Investigations Division of the ESCC and is responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Competition Act that deal with restrictive business practices provided in Section 30 and Section 31 of the Competition Act. They are also responsible for the enforcement of Section 30(5) trade practices which are often referred to as cartel conduct and for the enforcement of Section 34 against abuse of dominant position behaviours.

A Cartel exists when two or more enterprises enter into an explicit or implicit agreement and agree to fix prices, to engage into collusive tendering and bid rigging or enter into customer allocation agreements or divide markets or allocate market share, all of which are prohibited by the Competition Act.

The objective of a cartel is to raise prices above competitive levels, resulting into harm towards consumers and the economy at large. For consumers, cartelization results in higher prices, poor quality and less choice for goods and services.

An important dimension with cartels is that it requires an agreement between the competing enterprises, where they agree not to compete or to restrict or to limit competition to an appreciable extent in the country.