Chillin'Competition

The excessively generous eulogy that Pablo wrote a few days ago, together with my inactivity on the blog over the past few months weeks, have led some to suspect of my demise.

The absurd number of extremely kind messages that I’ve received over the past few days even made me doubt it…  But I’m happy to confirm that reports in this regard have been greatly exaggerated:

After a few months locked in the office for different and very good reasons (piece of advice: don’t try to combine that with the additional sleep deprivation linked to having a 4 month old baby!), I’m now starting to see the light again  and hope to be back blogging regularly very soon.

In the meanwhile, and beyond work, we have made some conference outings to start regaining the habit:

• On 11 October I was in Helsinki for a great conference organized by Ilkka Leppihalme. Director General Laitenberger, Richard Whish, Jorge Padilla and John Rattlif were the other speakers. Richard and John used some slides to accompany their excellent presentations and kindly gave green light for us to post them on the blog (thanks!). Here they are:

Richard Whish- Recent Cases on Vertical Agreements and Excessive Pricing

Kilpailuoikeus 2018 – EC Competition Cases before the European Courts – John Ratliff

I won’t share my slides for now because I might use them again in the future and they’ll lose the surprise factor 😉 But here is a teaser.

• On 24 October I participated at another very good conference put together by Lexxion’s CoRe, the VUB and CCIA on “Competition Policy in Online Markets”. A video with the highlights of the event is available here. While we are not (yet) subject to must-carry remedies, here is a succinct recap of the event published in a “competing” blog;
• And today I spoke on the impact of the Intel Judgment at this LeadershIP conference in Brussels. There was much to discuss and little time, but my main message was one of optimism (and I think realism) and trust regarding EU Courts, who are often the target of what I think is (mostly) unwarranted criticism. Will leave the details for a separate post;
• My efforts to catch up with Pablo re conference appearances were doomed, as he has been not only taking care of the blog but also actively travelling around (see here).

Future events

Looking to the future now, there are several must-attend events coming up:

-First of all, we are very excited to be hosting the 4^th Chillin’Competition Conference next Tuesday (20 November). With the help of some overbooking we will try to release some additional seats for those in the waitlist. If you did not get a ticket (apologies), we will try to make sure you are well informed of what goes on. If you registered but cannot make it, please let us know so that we can get someone else in.

-The very day after, on 21 November, there will be an interesting debate on procedural issues in Luxembourg (“Due Process in Competition Law Enforcement: A Comparative Perspective”). More info is available here. I won’t be able to attend, but if any of you can and is willing to report on it, please drop us a line.

-On 26 November I will be speaking at the AEDC’s annual conference (that is the Spanish Association for the Defence of Competition) in Madrid. The programme is here: Programa Jornada Anual AEDC 2018.  The conference is sold out but will be streamed live.

-On 17 January Commissioner Vestager will be hosting her conference “Shaping Competition Policy in the Era of Digitalisation”. Registrations are now open and here is all the relevant info (again, stay tuned, because we hear additional speakers may be announced soon…)