Archive for the ‘Interesting Links’ Category
Is associate lawyer the unhappiest job?
Looking at my Facebook newsfeed last night I saw that a friend (well, a Facebook friend, you know) had posted a story on how, according to a Forbes’ story, associate attorney is the No. 1 in a list of unhappiest jobs. Legal assistant ranks 7th.
This is quite troublesome, for it means that a great chunk of our readers are unhappy. I could have figured it out; who else would want to read half-serious competition law blogs?? [a suggestion to GoogleAds; it would be smart to place ads for anti-depressant pills on Chillin'Competition]
The list of happiest and unhappiest jobs has been compiled by a jobs website called CareerBliss, which has based it on reviews completed by more than 65,000 employees, accounting for factors such as life-work balance, work environment, compensation, growth opportunities, company culture and control over daily work. According to this site, a great deal of associates’s unhappiness is due to billable hour pressure, as well as to prevalent up or out policies.
Those who attribute this reported unhappiness to billable-hour pressure may find their ideas vindicated in a most interesting and provocative New York Times’ op-ed on The Tyranny of the Billable Hour published last week. At one point it refers to lawyers who ended up in jail for billing fictictous hours, which reminded me of a joke you might’ve heard:
- A prominent lawyer suddenly dies and arrives at the Gates of Heaven. When St. Peter greets him the lawyer protests that his untimely death had to be some sort of mistake: “I’m much too young to die! I’m only 35!”. St. Peter agrees that 35 seems to be a bit young to be entering the pearly gates, and agrees to check on his case. When St. Peter returned, he tells the attorney, “I’m afraid that the mistake must be yours, my son. We verified your age on the basis of the number of hours you’ve billed to your clients, and you’re at least 108.! “. 
I believe I might have gone a bit off topic… Coming back to the issue of unhappiness, you may remember that in the past we’ve devoted some attention to this issue. See, e.g. my random thoughts on life at law firms, Nico’s I love my job and my reply in Re: I love my job, or the more recent Where to work in Brussels?
You know my take. We’re privileged. If I compare what we do with what other people outside our circle do, well, we don’t have much reason to complain. One of my best friends in the competition law world used to work, among many others, at suspect identification parades in England (Mark, you don’t mind me writing this, right?) and I bet that he likes it better now (do you?) 
But the fact remains that there’s a problem, that many associates are unhappy doing what is and should be a most interesting job, and that many things could be done better, so we’d like to pose you a question: what do you think is the problem, and how do you think it could be fixed?
7th Junior Competition Conference – Private Actions
Our friends David Bailey (Brick Court Chambers), Christopher Brown (Matrix) and Sarah Long (Allen&Overy) are throwing a nice antitrust conference in London on 25 January 2013. We repost hereafter the cover email they sent us:
The 7th Junior Competition Conference
Reforming private actions in competition law
at the Competition Appeal Tribunal
on Friday 25 January 2013 at 2:00 pm
This conference is open to all those involved in UK competition law, economics and policy, whether in practice, in public service or in academia. Admission to the conference is free. The conference programme can be found here
As in previous years we anticipate that demand will be very high. Places will be given on a ‘first come, first served’ basis: for those interesting in coming, please contact us as soon as possible at operations@catribunal.org.uk.
Due to the popularity of the event and capacity constraints, please note that the following conditions apply:
- Attendees should be “junior” in the sense that we do not anticipate attendance by partners of law firms or economics consultancies, senior barristers, senior officials in public service or senior academics.
- To ensure that there is a good cross-section of the junior ‘competition community’, we may have to limit the numbers of attendees from any one organisation.
- If you are given a place and subsequently discover that you are unable to take it up, please could you notify the organisers as soon as possible, so that we may give your place to someone else.
Best Antitrust Movie Ever
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission just released “The Marker”.
In the category best compliance film, this one is poised to earn our Oscar this year.
Most antitrust films that we know look like crafted and played by competition officials themselves. Think of the hilarious “The Raid“.
Here, everything looks like the standard Hollywood film, i.e. casting, direction, music, photography, etc.
A real must see.
PS: Thanks to Joachim Marchandise for the pointer.
Can Do Better
Whilst seating on the beach, I read last week’s (now) famous Economist piece on fines.
I was quite astonished to read that The Economist supports further increases in corporate fines. The conclusion of the paper speaks for itself: “To deter bad behaviour fines need to rise. The watchdog are biting, but some need sharper teeth“.
That said, I found the paper a little weak. Strangely enough, it says nothing of most issues that currently matter in respect of corporate fines:
- No word on sanctions for individuals, in the form of director disqualification orders;
- Some references to theoretical studies, including references to the economics of crime (G. Becker) and cartel overcharges (O’Connor & Helmers), but no word on principal-agent problems in large multinational corporations;
- No word on the issue of fines in times of economic crisis;
- No word on compliance programmes.
Is there a hidden agenda there or am I again reading newspapers like the devil reads the bible?
Arguably, those omissions may be explained by the fact that the paper is not antitrust-related only (quod non). The paper opens with some words on the economics of corporate fines, and follows with a brief discussion of the penalties inflicted to Barclays a few weeks ago. But after this, the meat of the paper really is a discussion of antitrust fines. And even if it were true that the paper takes a larger focus, it remains silent on a number of key issues. Think, for instance, to the trade-off that regulators are now facing, i.e. sanctioning banks with hefty fines v. ensuring banking stability with subsidies.
The bottom-line: The Economist can do better…
Interviews with Commissioner Almunia
By the time you read this Nicolas and I should hopefully be away on holidays. We have scheduled this “lazy” post for those interested in watching the series of video-interviews with Commissioner Almunia published by the independent EU policy broadcaster viEUws.
In these interviews (you can click on the hyperlinks to watch the videos) Commissioner Almunia talks about the Google investigation, Microsoft’s lack of compliance with browser choice, Standard Essential Patents (Apple vs. Samsung, Motorola vs. Apple & Motorola vs. Microsoft), State aid & cross-border mergers in the European banking sector as well as about the Libor / Euribor case.
After the holidays we will do our best provide you with our very own interview with Joaquín Almunia. Any suggestions as to possible questions that you would like him to respond to?
Self promotion
We like to self promote at chillin’competition.
For instance, you will have noticed from yesterday’s post that Alfonso likes to incidentally recall that he works on a pending case against a giant US corporation.
So I take my turn to self promote a little, with a recap on recent and forthcoming chillin’competition-related activities:
- I was in Helsinki with my friend Miguel Rato (Shearman & Sterling). We were invited to deliver a presentation at the 11th Annual Conference of the Association of European Competition Law Judges (AECLJ). With 60 judges from accross Europe in the room (including judges from Luxemburg), Richard Whish, Alexander Italianer and Nick Banasevic on the podium, this was a very challenging talk. I attach the presentation here: Slides – Petit & Rato – Abuse in Technology-Enabled Markets – 11th AECLJ Conference (14 06 12. A paper on “Abuse in Technology-Enabled Markets” is in the making;
- The registration process for the 2012/2013 edition of the LLM in Competition Law & Economics at the Brussels School of Competition is now opened. We have a new brochure in which you will find a number of changes. A teaser: F. Jenny will teach on abuse with JF. Bellis, Alfonso’s existence is now official and several ***** economists have joined;
- We have a GCLC lunch talk this Friday, on the Commission’s review on the rules on technology transfer agreements. Our speakers are Donncadh Woods (DG Competition), Frédéric Louis (WilmerHale) and Paul Lugard (Tilburg Institute for Law and Economics (TILEC) and ICC Commission on Competition);
- Ana Paula Martinez (Levy & Salomao) is the editor of a new, impressive volume entitled Temas Atuais de Direito da Concorrencia with written contributions (in English) from S. Salop, E. Elhauge, D. Geradin, Mariana Tavares de Araujo, Ian S. Forrester and Francisco Enrique González-Díaz. Here’s the leaflet and table of contents: GED_LS-#845180-v1-2012_Brazil_Competition_Book
- I was in Strasbourg yesterday to lecture on IP and competition law at the CEIPI and I will be in Bruges tomorrow to give a presentation at the 8th ELEA symposium. It is a very busy week, like last week… and hopefully unlike next week.
Legal films and series
Many of you are aware about our taste for antitrust videos. In previous posts we commented on “The Informant” and on the OFT’s own production, we awarded Chilling Competition’s Antitrust Oscars, and we brought to you the wonderful classic”The Raid“. Many of those posts rank high in our list of most visited posts, so there are reasons to believe that you share our “geek” taste for these movies.
Our “Friday Slot” guests also seem to be fans of legal movies. In the interviews published so far some of them have confessed that legal movies rank among their favorites [e.g. "12 Angry Men" (Eric Gippini Fournier); "12 Angry Men", "Philadelphia" and "The Verdict" (Johan Ysewyn), or "To Kill a Mockingbird" (Maurits Dolmans)].
The American Bar Association has a list of the 25 Greatest Legal Movies of all times [headed by "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "12 Angry Men", which reveals that Maurits', Eric's and Johan's taste for movies is not as original as their legal constructions ] Other websites have posted lists of the top-15 film/TV lawyers in history. The image that oursiders sometimes have from our job is often dictated by these movies and these characters. Whether or not they portray reality is generally a contentious issue. I went to Harvard Law School thinking that it would be like in “Legally Blonde” (I even died my hair and let it grow…here is the evidence), but it actually was closer to the scary ”The Paper Chase“. Actually, it didn’t ressemble any of them. But it didn’t ressemble “The Social Network”s constant drunk partying neither..
Nowadays the good stuff has moved from the big screens to the TV. There’s a surprising number of “legal” TV series (see here for a list). Not having ever watched most of them, I have to confess that I’ve a clear favorite: The Good Wife. For the past couple of months watching an episode (sometimes a couple, sometimes even one or two more…) has been a late-night vice routine. I know for a fact that other competiton lawyers are going through the same problem right now with this series. I even know someone in the US who called in sick the day the last season was released in DVD and watched the whole thing in one day. Maybe that was a bit too much, but you really should watch it. I’m now done with all available episosed and opened to suggestions for a new series. Anyone?
Some interesting and recent stuff
There has been some interesting stuff going on in the past few days that we haven´t been able to cover. Here’s a brief (and subjective) account of some recent antitrust related news:
- Bill Gates has been (and at the time of writing he may well still be) testifying in a Utah Court in the framework of a case initiated by Novell. Novell is arguing that Microsoft encouraged them to develop WordPerfect software for Windows, only to later withdraw its support because WordPerfect competed with other Microsoft products. Judge Motz, who is presiding over the case, has reportedly expressed skepticism that Novell’s claims have merit.
- Chinese authorities confirmed that there is currently an ongoing investigation concerning a possible abuse of dominance on the part of two State-owned companies (China Telecom Corp. and China Unicom). The antitrust branch within the NDRC is investigating whether these two companies -allegedly dominant in the market for broadband internet services- may have been charging their competitors higher fees for broadband access while offering favorable prices to non-competitors. This is to our knowledge the first high profile abuse of dominance investigation since the Antimonopoly Law was enacted in 2008. The fact that it is targeting two State owned companies makes it particularly interesting. We’ll be asking our “Chinese correspondent” to keep an eye open for any possible developments.
- Here´s one that I´m following with particular interest: NBA players hired the very well known antitrust lawyer David Boies to represent them in their battle against franchise owners that has led to the NBA lockout. The players have now filed two class action lawsuits (one in Minessota and one in California, which are considered to be favorable venues) asking for treble damages (that is, triple the amount of the more than $ 2 billion they would´ve made this season). The lawsuits argue that the lockout “constitutes an illegal group boycott, price-fixing agreement, and/or restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act” an hat the owners´ final offer for a new collective bargaining agreement would have “wiped out the competitive market for most NBA players”. (For our comments on the very similar NFL precedent see here).
- Giorgio Monti (Professor at the European University Institute in Florence and author of one of our favorite competition law textbooks) read our posts on Pierre Fabre and on the future of Article 101 and invited us to participate at a workshop in Fiesole on January 5th. Should be very interesting; we’ll give you more details in the coming days.
- Antitrust students at Berkeley have started their own Berkeley Global Antitrust Blog. Best of lucks to them!
-Finally, last week we received a couple of emails from readers that reveal that my co-blogger Nicolas is apparently becoming a celebrity. One reader told us about the fact that there is a Nicolas Petit street in Luxembourg, and another reader sent us a picture that shows that a young competition lawyer has a picture of Brad Pitt Nicolas above her desk (!)
See pic below for evidence. We´ll keep the identity of Nico´s fan secret in order to avoid any incidents with Ms. Petit ; )
On Cartels and Beers
Yesterday´s post was about Services of General Economic Interest and Sausages. Today´s deals with cartels and beers.
Some days ago we anticipated that we would comment on the latest cartel Judgment issued by the General Court in Case T-235/07, Koninklijke Grolsch v Commission in relation to the Dutch Beer Cartel, which was sanctioned by the Commission back in 2007. When we announced that we would comment on it we hadn´t yet read the Judgment but rather the Court´s press release about it, but the notice about the annulment of a Commission´s decision is something that always turns us on attracts our interest).
Those interested in an objective summary of the relevant facts and of the GC´s reasoning can read the Court´s Press Release. Those interested on some not objective opinions can keep on reading:
In our opinion, the annulment of the decision as regards Grolsch is, in a sense, quite logical: that is what happens when you conflate distinct legal entities into one (a temptation too often seen in EU competiton law) and distinct infringements into one single and continuous infringement (also quite usual) and then mix it all together. But there are two interesting aspects of the case that are worth commenting.
One is the manner in which the GC dismisses the validity of the evidence concerning the parent´s company possible participation in the infringement: After noting that the majority of the evidence put forward by the Commission related in reality to the participation of Grolsch´s subsidiary, the Court was left with a couple of evidentiary items that could be used to support the accusation against the parent company (see recital 61 of the Judgment). The GC however dismisses those elements in an interesting manner (in recitals 62-71 of the Judgment). In essence, the GC decomposes the elements of the single and continuous infringement into three, and, departing from the Commission´s summary description of each of those components, it attempts to check whether the evidence can fit into any of them (this is an interesting, and welcome, deconstruction exercise that I´d never seen before regarding “single and continuous infringements). The GC then underlines that some of the evidence (documents found at Heineken relating to telephone conversations with one of the parent company´s employees) did not fit into the description provided by the Commission and therefore dismissed it. The Court was then left with one piece of evidence (notes taken at a meeting by that same employee of the parent company), but this evidence was also considered insufficient on the basis of another interesting reasoning (see recitals 65-66). In essence, the GC´s stance is that a complex concertation necessarily involves regular contacts throughout a long period of time, and that a single element cannot prove the participation of one company over the whole of this period. Does this imply a raise in the evidentiary standard for complex and long infringements?
The other aspect worth mentioning is the Commission´s lapsus (probably due to a certain overconfidence) , that has cost the EU budget 31.66 million euros. As it is clear from the Judgment, the participation of Grolsch´s subsidiary in the infringement was clear and there was enough evidence to prove it. If the Commission had addressed the decision to both the parent company and the subsidiary (as it normally does, and as it did in this case with regard to all other groups of companies involved) the sanction would´ve been upheld. Ooops.
According to one of our favorite sources: beveragedaily.com, the Commission is pondering whether to appeal the Judgment before the ECJ.
More on cartels and beers:
On 10-13 October the International Competition Network will be holding a Cartel Workshop in Bruges (Nicolas is attending, and I wouldn´t mind accompanying him if someone at DG COMP considers me -when I wear my blogger hat- as a stakeholder and kindly sends an invitation…). If any of our readers is attending the conference, I will now disclose one of Bruge´s most precious secrets: the most amazing beer that I´ve ever had can only be found in Bruges at a place called DeGarre. 
This is a traditional place for students of the College of Europe (because, you know, there are so many other things to do in Bruges…). Luis Ortiz Blanco also traditionally invites the students attending his seminar at the College for some beers at the end of the academic year. You really shouldn´t miss it.
PS. And speaking about the ICN´s Workshop, we very much recommend you to check out their blog at www.icnblog.org . It really is a great source of information on international antitrust.
OFT goes to Hollywood
Remember our Antitrust Oscars?
We have a new and excellent candidate for the category of “Best Film by a Competition Authority”.
Check out the Compliance Film that the OFT has just released and which includes a dramatised dawn raid and special guest appearances from the likes of Prof. Richard Whish. A cool initiative within the OFT´s wider compliance project.
(Thanks to Christopher Brown and Luis Ortiz Blanco for drawing our attention to it!).
And coming soon to a blog near you…we have a truly excellent film in the pipeline with very special actors and a very special director. We´ll post it here as soon as we can overcome some technical issues.
PS. For those of you who haven´t already heard, Damien Neven (former Chief Economist at DG Comp) is joining Charles River Associates. Stay tuned, there might just be some more related news coming up soon.
