Chillin'Competition

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?

Antitrust quizzes seem to be the flavor of the day.

In the past few weeks we posted a few on this blog (see here, here, and here). Today we have just learnt that the European Commission has launched its own competition law quiz: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consumers/quiz/index_en.html

Nice initiative from the Commission! (many thanks to our friend Isabel Yglesias for pointing us to it)

It’s actually quite well done. It has 3 levels: “Basic (general audience); Advanced (students in competition law); Expert (advanced students in competition law and practitioners)” (as if all practitioners had expert knowledge…).

We would love to arrange a competition among our readers to see how many of you get 10/10, but we have no way of verifyng any results you would report, and since most of you are also lawyers we can’t just trust you..

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P.S. We can’t give you more details for the moment, but you should know that a sort of competition law quiz will be an important part of the competition law conference of the century, decade, year, month? the first Chillin’ Competition conference.

The program is now half baked, and we will soon start contacting the speakers/participants we have in mind. We will be giving you further information in the coming days.

In spite of its title, this post is not related to our “Antitrust Oscars” series (see here, here, here and here).

My co-blogger Nicolas is, like Apple and Microsoft, on a complaining mood. Last week he was whining about how in the past few weeks I would (allegedly) not have complied with all of my blog-related duties. Nonetheless, he was smart enough to hide the criticism behind an excessive panegyrical of both my firm and myself, so now I feel I need to give something in return. That’s why I’m committed to give a last push to his campaign for Concurrence’s Antitrust Writing Awards:

Some weeks ago we referred here to this most interesting initiative by the Institute of Competition Law and George Washington Law School, and announced that Nicolas had been selected as one of the candidates for the award in the category of academic articles. Since we launched our online-campaign Nicolas’ piece has reached the first position both in terms of rating (4.44/5) and in terms of number of votes (with more than twice as many votes as the runner up) (temporary results are available here).

As you know, a French movie featuring a funnily looking French chap (see pic above) was the big winner at the Oscar ceremony held last Sunday. I never thought I would say this, but here it goes: please help the French winning streak continue! (Come on; think that it’s highly unlikely that any Frenchman will be winning anything else in the coming decades near future).

You can vote for Nicolas’ piece on ”Credit Rating Agencies, the Sovereign Debt Crisis and Competition Law” by clicking here.

Something no one knows about this piece is that it has inspired a complaint lodged by a member of the Italian Parliament with the Italian Antitrust Authority (see here).

The usual incentive applies: if Nicolas wins, all those writing a comment to this post saying that they have voted for him will receive a free beer by courtesy of the candidate.

The awards ceremony will take place on Washington D.C on 27 March. If Nico wins, that moment could recreate another well-remembered landmark in the history of cinema: “Mr Petit goes to Washington” (see capture of the film below)

(Thanks to Susana Rodríguez Sogo for assisting with the photo-editing!)

Competition law quizzes are getting popular:

The International Committee of the ABA’s Antitrust Section is apparently running an Antitrust Trivia (thanks to Vera Sopeña for the pointer!)

As a follow-up of our quizz on the history of competition law,  Antonie Winckler has proposed a quizz of his own to our readers:

He remembers having read somewhere that Baldus de Ubaldis  - the greatest legal thinker of the Middle Ages – considered that the law against boycotts and restraint of trade was part of natural law, and thus pre-empted postive law and was universally applicable. Anybody finding the right quote is welcome to share a beer with Antoine.

As you see, the “beer reward” is becoming a tradition here

 Las Siete Partidas, passed by Alfonso X, El Sabio (1265) [Alfonso "The Wise"].

Congrats to Tatiana Siakka, David Mamane, Andrey, and Lorenzo Climenti!  (Nico: you can afford 4 beers, right?)

Here is an explanation extracted from their answers:

Title 7 within Law 2 of the Fifth Partida, entitled “Of the shortages and bids that merchants create between themselves through oats and guilds” was the legal provision prohibiting traders from engaging in price-fixing and output restriction.

The Code was elaborated in Spain (Castile), but it was in force in Latin America until the modern codification movement (1822–1916). Until the beginning of the 19th century, they were even in effect in the parts of the United States, such as Louisiana, California or Nevada, that had previously belonged to the Spanish empire and used civil law. Furthermore, they served as the legal foundation for the formation of the governing juntas that were established in both Spain and Spanish America after the imprisonment of King Fernando VII during the Peninsular War.

Below you will find a scanned version of the relevant part by courtesy of José Luis Buendía.

[The text appears in Spanish and Latin. Since the short bios available at Brussels-based law firms suggest that all competition lawyers are fluent in practically every language, we trust that many of you will be able to understand it ]

P.S. Could someone please edit wikipedia´s entry for History of Competition Law?

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.

In July 2010, DG COMP published the results of a wide-scale stakeholder study (Alfonso commented on this a while ago).

According to the stakeholders study, DG COMP has arguably enforced the competition rules in a satisfactory fashion, both from a substantive and procedural standpoint.

As part of their exam, my students from EDHEC Business School have been requested to assess whether the findings of DG COMP’s stakeholder study are sound. To this end, I have required them to run a counter-stakeholders’ survey, which takes the form of a reduced questionnaire.

I would like to offer our readers the opportunity to help my studs, by filling-in the below questionnaire:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHZVVWI0SzNhNUFQUlpsa2NnZWVra1E6MQ (or simply by clicking here)

Please note that it should take you a maximum of 15 minutes to complete this survey. Obviously, all the responses to the survey will remain confidential and will be used for the sole academic purpose of this study. If you have any questions or concerns about completing the questionnaire, you may contact my assistant at dgcompsurvey@edhec.com or eprovost@doct.ulg.ac.be.

Name of assistants/students involved in the research project: Elise Provost; Naruttama Asvamanee;Edouard Augris; Melissa Butarbutar; Guilain Lobut; Anne-Juliette Lepoutre; Sabine Racine; Mariama Sene.

Our readers are proposing some additional nominations as well as the creation of a new categores for comic books and online games. We are obedient guys and we do what we´re asked, so we´re now beyond movies and looking for nominations on competition entertainment…

Best animated feature

A brief history of the creation of the FTC

Best online game

A visit to the mall, by the FTC

Best competition law comics

Two mangas by the Competition Commission of Singapore: Foiled (Abuse of dominance) and Fixed (price fixing)

O Cartel da Limonada, by the Brazilian Ministry for Justice

Io Non Abbocco, by the Italian Competition Authority

La Breve Storia di Borgo Allegro, by the Italian Competition Authority

Una Brutta Sorpresa, also by  the Italian Competition Authority (I´m sure they work on other stuff too over there)

The info on the comics is available at the ICN Blog (thanks a lot to Kartellblog for the pointer!).  I´ve actually found quite interesting info in there.  An example: anyone interested in doing competition law research in Fiji?

In the past few days both Nicolas and I have commented on the Tomra and General Química Judgments. Both cases can be useful starting points for a quizz (we´ve got a special prize for anyone who replies all 5 questions correctly):

1) When was the last time that the European Courts annulled a Commission´s decision on abuse of dominance?

2) When was the last time that the Europen Courts reduced a fine imposed by the Commission on an abuse of dominance case?

3) When was the last time that US agencies successfully litigated an abuse of dominance (Section 2) case before the courts?

4) When was the last time that a company was able to rebut the presumption on the exercise of decisive influence applicable to 100% owned subsidiaries?

5) Which one of the Judges at the General Court directed and starred a movie on competition law (also starred by other well known competition lawyers and officials), and what was the title of the movie?

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Unrelated: the companies sanctioned in the air cargo cartel case have lodged their appeals before the General Court, including Lufthansa, who received full inmunity in application of the leniency notice (very probably with the aim of reducing its exposure to damage claims). By the way, the registrar at the General Court has numbered Air Canada´s appeal as Case 9/11…

For the first time ever, DG COMP  has posed this question to stakeholders and citizens by carrying out a comprehensive survey about the perception of its activities.

In the framework of this exercise, two independent companies have undertaken  both a qualitative survey targetted to professional stakeholders and a quantitative survey of EU citizens from all Member States.

The aggregate stakeholder report is available here, and the individual reports for the various collectives interviewed are available in the following links (companies, lawyers, economic consultancies, consumer associations, national ministries, and national competition authorities). All of these reports cover issues such as legal and economic  soundness of decisions, integrity, economic effectiveness, and external communication. There are tons of interesting comments on DG COMP´s activities, too many to be summed up here. I very much recommend taking a look at these  if you find time.

The survey on citizen´s perceptions about competition policy can be consulted in its full version, as well as in an abbreviated one.  The results, once again, are also extremely interesting (and sometimes shocking; e.g: did you know that 29% of the Spaniards interviewed doubted that price agreements should be prohibited?).  

Some curious data: in practically all Member States the percentage of citizens who believe they are sufficiently informed about competition policy is below 5%;   more than 25% of Bulgarian, Slovak, Polish and Estonian citizens have no whish whatsoever in becoming more informed about this stuff;  the proportion of citizens who gave a “don´t know answer or who did not consider  themselves qualified to reply was highest in…Belgium!). When asked in what sector the lack of competition was causing problems for consumers, citizens pointed out at energy (44%), pharmaceutical products (25%), telecommunications and internet (21%), transport (19%), financial services (18%), and food distribution (16%).

PS. We´re not ignoring the elephant in the room (the opening of a formal investigation about Google´s allegedly abusive practices); there´ll be plenty to come on this case.