Chillin'Competition

The 38th edition of the Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy directed by Barry Hawk at Fordham Competition Law Institute will take place in New York on Wednesday, September 7 and Thursday, September 8, 2011. As usual, the conference will feature la crème de la crème in international antitrust (see here for this edition´s truly impressive programme).

As long-time admirers of this conference and avid readers of its published annual proceedings, Nicolas and I are very glad to offer our readers what we see as a unique chance to contribute to the discussions that will take place there this year. Here’s how:

Amonsgt other most interesting panels, on this upcoming edition there will be a roundtable on “European Competition Enforcement”.  The line-up of panelists for the roundtable on this topic is certainly unmatchable: Alexander Italianer (Director General, European Commission); Bruno Laserre (President of the French Conseil de la Concurrence); John Fingleton ( Chief Executive at the UK´s Office of Fair Trading),  Andreas Mundt (President of the Bundeskartellamt) and Manuel Sebastiao (President of the Portuguese Autoridade da Concorrencia). The task of chairing a bunch of chairmans will fall upon the shoulders of the competition lawyer I´ve always looked up to Luis Ortiz Blanco.

I will be assisting Luis in the drafting of his written contribution, and while dicussing about it an idea sprang to mind. Given the surprising and rising number of competition law experts from all over the world who read this blog, we thought it could be very interesting to ask you to share your ideas on issues related to European Competiton Enforcement that you think should be dealt with by the speakers taking part in this roundtable. We proposed it to Barry Hawk and he also thought it could be interesting, so that’s what we’re doing now.

If you wish to directly contribute to this top-level discussion with your thoughts or experiences on issues related to European competition enforcement, please send them to us preferably as comments to this post. Please note that all of your suggestions will be seriously considered as potential issues to be thrown to the panel, but also that we cannot guarantee that all of them will make it there.

Thanks go to Barry Hawk and Luis Ortiz Blanco for this opportunity. We look forward to hearing about your ideas!