Chillin'Competition

Some propaganda:

1. “Ethique et conflits d’intérêt en droit européen de la concurrence”:  A 1,5 pager, a little controversial, and for good reason : upon inquiry, there is no standard ex post “recusation” procedure in EU competition proceedings. So how  to dismiss a conflicted decision maker? And before this, how to know he is conflicted? Those weird findings, coupled with other recent developments (the ongoing revolving doors investigations of the Ombudsman)  prompted further research on ethical rules in EU competition law. Will likely dig deeper in the upcoming months. An English translation of this edito is in the pipeline, and due to appear in ECLR…

2. “Industrial Policy and Competition Enforcement: Is There, Could There and Should There Be a Nexus?“:  co-authored with N. Neyrinck. This paper makes a number of novel points. One of them is that under current legal standards, some transactions (e.g. mergers) that are deemed compatible when they originate from EU-owned firms, may be forbidden when they originate from non EU-owned firms. The explainer: efficiencies generated by EU-owned firms benefit more directly to EU consumers than efficiencies arising from non EU-owned firms. Another point of the paper is that the EU industrial policy agenda (and all the thinking that went into this) should inform DG COMP’s priority setting policy. This paper was presented at the 2012 GCLC annual conference and will be published as part of the conference proceedings.

3. “New Challenges for 21st Century Competition Authorities“:  You guys know this one. A modest effort to identify some of the hottest issues in contemporary competition enforcement. The paper does not pursue great academic ambitions, but make a number of original points (on the use and abuse of settlements/commitments in particular). It will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Common Law Review and was presented at a conference in Hong Kong in October 2012.