Art. 17 of the Trade Act grants the Minister the authority to designate specific trades or businesses as exclusively reserved for citizens of Botswana or companies wholly owned by Botswana citizens. In line with Section 24 of the Trade Regulations, the businesses reserved for locals include, among others, cell phone shops and internet cafés. However, joint ventures between citizens and non-citizens may be approved by the Minister responsible for medium and large enterprises.

Section 145 of the Companies Act provides that a public company shall have at least two directors, and a private company shall have at least one director who shall be ordinarily resident in Botswana.

The Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC) was established by the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre Act. Part V of the Act sets the functions, powers and duties of the Centre, which screens all proposed investments to ensure that they fall within the set priority investment sectors. An investment application is likely to succeed if it demonstrates some of the following:
- Number and quality/level of employment created;
- Potential for skills and technology transfer;
- Potential for export and import substitution;
- Potential to create backward and forward linkages;
- Innovation and creativity;
- Priority sector under the Economic Diversification Drive (EDD).

Benin has not adopted national legislation based on or influenced by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Signatures.

It is reported that type approval procedures in Benin are regulated by the Autorité Régulation des Communications Electroniques et de la Poste (ARCEP). The homologation process in Benin does not require local laboratory testing or contact with local representatives. However, a product sample can be requested from the authority for viewing.

Benin does not implement any de minimis threshold, which is the minimum value of goods below which customs do not charge duties. However, an informal threshold of 100 USD is reportedly applied.

Law No. 2007-21 on consumer protection in the Republic of Benin and Law No. 2017-20 on the Digital Code in the Republic of Benin provide a comprehensive consumer protection framework that applies to online transactions.

Benin has signed and ratified the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts.

Benin has not adopted national legislation based on or influenced by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on Electronic Commerce.

Art. 391 of Law No. 2017-20 requires that the transfer of personal data to a third State or international organisation may only take place when the Authority finds that the State or international organisation in question ensures a level of protection equivalent to that provided for in the law. Art. 392 provides some exceptions, including the express consent of the data subject and the necessity of the transfer for the execution of the contract.

Benin has not joined any free trade agreement committing to open transfers of cross-border data flows.

Law No. 2009-09 provides a general framework for personal data protection and establishes, among other things, individuals' rights, consent requirements, restrictions on data processing, as well as establishing the Beninese data protection authority as the supervisory authority. The law is supplemented by the more detailed Digital Code in 2018. The Fifth Book of the Digital Code is directly influenced by the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) (GDPR). It regulates and clarifies several matters, such as joint controllership of data, conditions for consent, data breach notifications, processing for research and other purposes, and impact assessments.

Pursuant to Art. 428 of Law No. 2017-20, where a type of processing, in particular through the use of new technologies and taking into account the nature, scope, context and purposes of the processing, is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons, the controller shall carry out, prior to the processing, an analysis of the impact of the envisaged processing operations on the protection of personal data, that is a data protection impact assessment (DPIA).