When Hollard Insurance Company of Botswana admitted to anti-competitive conduct and agreed to pay P4.83 million in the country’s first cartel settlement, the Competition and Consumer Authority (CCA) did what competition regulators are expected to do. It investigated, secured an admission, imposed a financial penalty and extracted compliance commitments.
Hollard Isurance, Botswana Insurance Company, Old mutual, and Autoboys were accused by the CCA of running a multi-billion Pula anti-competitive insurance cartel. Hollard confessed and settled with the CCA.
Others stood their ground and the matter was referred to the Tribunal. Meanwhile, since then there has been no indication from NBFIRA that they have acted on Hollard’s admission.
So far, NBFIRA has not disclosed any regulatory, supervisory, enforcement or disciplinary action against Hollard arising from the conduct.
Instead, it has repeatedly cited confidentiality.
Responding to an inquiry by Sunday Standard NBFIRA says its supervisory and regulatory work on the matter is ‘ongoing’. But when asked by this publication whether it conducted its own assessment following Hollard’s admission, it did not provide any findings, remedial action or regulatory outcome.
NBFIRA is not a spectator to the insurance industry. It is the prudential and market-conduct regulator responsible for the supervision of insurers and the protection of policyholders and consumers. The CCA’s findings were not vague. Its investigation found anti-competitive conduct involving, among other things, direct or indirect fixing of prices and terms of trade to car repairers, abuse of dominance and agreements involving the sharing of trade secrets that had the effect of substantially lessening competition.
Hollard subsequently acknowledged that certain of its past conduct contravened the Competition Act and confirmed that it had ceased that conduct.
Hollard also agreed to develop, implement and monitor a competition-law compliance programme and submit it to the CCA. It further agreed to co-operate with the CCA in its case against the remaining respondents and to pay P4,828,510.08.
That leaves NBFIRA with an uncomfortable regulatory question. What did it do?
NBFIRA says it and the CCA have a memorandum of understanding providing for co-operation and information-sharing, and confirms that the arrangement was used in this case. So the regulator says it knew about the matter.
It also says it does not condone anti-competitive conduct and that where conduct raises concern within its mandate, it may take appropriate supervisory or regulatory action. But when asked whether it actually took such action against Hollard, NBFIRA would not say. ‘NBFIRA’s supervisory and enforcement processes are subject to applicable confidentiality requirements,’ the Authority said.
The same answer was given when Sunday Standard asked whether Hollard had been subjected to remedial measures, governance improvements, compliance undertakings or additional reporting requirements. NBFIRA also declined to say whether it had assessed the fitness and probity of Hollard’s directors, senior executives or other key persons following the admission.
It said such assessments may take into account conduct, integrity, competence and the ability of responsible persons to discharge their duties.
Again, it would not say whether such an assessment had taken place.
The regulator was equally guarded on policyholders.
Asked whether it had assessed the impact of Hollard’s conduct on consumers and whether any redress or protective measures had been required, NBFIRA responded that it assesses potential consumer harm where information indicates that a regulated entity may have adversely affected policyholders.
It did not say whether such an assessment had found harm, whether policyholders had been affected or whether any corrective measures had been imposed.
The CCA has publicly disclosed what Hollard admitted, what Hollard agreed to do and how much it agreed to pay.
NBFIRA, by contrast, has disclosed none of the regulatory consequences of that admission.
The CCA is the specialist competition authority. NBFIRA regulates and supervises insurers under the insurance regulatory framework. NBFIRA itself says the mandates are complementary. That means the CCA’s settlement did not necessarily exhaust the regulatory implications for an insurer.
Yet almost five months after the CCA settlement of 29 April 2026, NBFIRA’s position remains that its supervisory work is ongoing. There is no disclosed NBFIRA penalty. No disclosed directive. No disclosed governance intervention. No disclosed compliance undertaking. No disclosed consumer-redress measure. No disclosed fitness-and-probity finding.
There may be confidential regulatory action that has not been disclosed. NBFIRA says so.
But that is precisely the problem, the regulator has provided no evidence, in its response, that any such action has actually been taken.
Sunday Standard did not ask NBFIRA to disclose confidential commercial information about Hollard. We asked whether regulatory action had been taken and, if so, what category of action followed a public admission of anti-competitive conduct.
The Authority chose not to answer. NBFIRA says its approach is ‘ongoing and risk-based’. That may be its regulatory position. But the public record currently contains a very simple sequence: the competition regulator investigated Hollard, the company admitted contravening competition law, a Tribunal-confirmed settlement followed, and Hollard paid millions of pula.
The insurance regulator, meanwhile, says it is still working on the matter and will not disclose whether it has taken action.
The question is therefore no longer whether NBFIRA knew. By its own account, it did.
The question is whether it acted. On that question, NBFIRA has supplied no answer.