Author Archive
Tweets
A welcome initiative: under the impetus of its creative chairman, Dr. Theodor Thanner, the Austrian Competition Authority has started to communicate on twitter. The account is BWB_WETTBEWERB. Some of you will have noticed that we have drawn inspiration from this. A twitter box appears in the right column of this blog. Unfortunately, GSM service is not yet available in Belgium. I will try to get fully familiar with the interface in the coming weeks. Amongst other things, the plan is to tweet during competition law events.
A Must Read for the Summer
In his last paper, Dan Sokol (Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog) finds evidence that there was no significant reduction in merger enforcement under Bush.
In addition to this, Dan provides citations to a relevant Simpsons episode, post-modernist philosopher Michel Foucault, and 80s’ rock band Wang-Chung along with the usual antitrust suspects in law and economics.
Below the abstract, and a link here to the paper.
ABSTRACT: This article provides a descriptive, analytical overview of the various institutions to better frame the larger institutional interrelations for a comparative institutional analysis. In the next Part it examines mergers as a case study of how one might apply antitrust institutional analysis across these different kinds and levels of antitrust institutions. The Article utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methods based on survey data of antitrust practitioners on merger issues to better understand institutional choice and the decision-making process. The surveys reveal results that run counter to the popular antitrust discourse about the level of merger enforcement under Bush. Slightly more than half of all practitioners surveyed found no change in merger enforcement under Bush in their own practice and the vast majority of the rest found a change in enforcement to be merely at the margins. The Article concludes with observations from the case study and appeals for more theoretical and empirical works in antitrust institutional analysis.
(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)
A Big Win
Last Monday, a group of LL.M. students from the University of Liege (ULg) won the concours Lamy de la concurrence held at the French NCA in Paris. The team was composed of Anne-Sophie Come, Mathieu Coquelet, Pierre Sabbadini, Willem de Vos and Norman Neyrinck (coach). This is obviously a source of great satisfaction and pride. Hat tip to the students and their coach.
Below, the new LL.M. brochure for 2010.
Breaking News – Brussels based LL.M. in Competition Law and Economics
I am delighted to announce the setting up of the Brussels School of Competition (“BSC”). The BSC is organised under the aegis of the Federation of Enterprises in Belgium (“FEB”). Its primary purpose is to provide a high-profile, specialised course leading to an advanced Master (LL.M.) in Competition Law and Economics. This course has been especially designed so as to be fully compatible with the requirements of professional practice.
Over the past decades, the European Union (“EU”) competition rules have become a critical legal issue for companies in all sectors of the economy. With rules covering a variety of practices including cooperation and distribution agreements, abuse of dominance, unfair trade practices and State aid, firms in the EU and elsewhere face increased antitrust exposure and, in turn, a significant challenge in terms of compliance. In addition to this, the introduction of industrial economics into the various areas of EU competition policy has considerably increased the degree of analytical sophistication of antitrust proceedings.
To meet the growing demand for training in this discipline, I have – together with my FEB colleagues Charles Gheur and Philippe Lambrecht – established a full-fledged LL.M. programme which provides – unlike most Brussels-based seminars and conferences – (i) a comprehensive and structured teaching programme, with periodic assessments, and (ii) multidisciplinary courses in both competition law and economics.
You can find below a flyer presenting the LL.M. programme. As you will see, the LL.M. boasts an impressive faculty, comprising lawyers and economists, officials and private practitioners, who are all acknowledged experts in their fields.
For more information on the programme, please visit www.brusselsschoolofcompetition.eu or send us an e-mail: info@brusselsschoolofcompetition.eu
Paper and Slides presented at Vienna Competition Conference
I attach below a set of slides (very simple) and a very preliminary draft text (loads of things to complete) presented at the Vienna Competition Conference 2010 which took place yesterday in Austria. Comments welcome.
I am told that all the materials presented at the conference will shortly be posted there.
I am off for a few days. Meanwhile, Alfonso will take care of the shop.
Behavioral Economics and Abuse of Dominance – PETIT and NEYRINCK
Slides on Review of the Rules Applicable to Horizontal Cooperation Agreements
- 48th lunch talk – 7 July – First Settlement Decision in the DRAMs Case, with K. Dekeyser, P. Mansfield and R. Snellders
- 49th lunch talk – 23 September – Quantification of Damages with Judge P. Roth and A. Lofaro
It’s nothing as it seems
I recently peer-reviewed a paper for a competition law journal.
The paper was crap: a recycled and biased “expert” opinion, poorly translated from a non-English language to English, with a significant amount of considerations that were entirely off-topic (technical discussion of the regulatory framework for IPRs). My assessment was negative, bad, tough. I made loads of comments, supposing that the editors would forward them to the author, who in turn would try to implement and/or contest them. In brief, I expected to see a new version of the paper, or at least receive some explanation to the effect that my comments were not relevant, etc. My experience is that this is how it works with professional journals.
Anyway, I was quite surprised to learn today, by myself, that the paper had been published. I have not yet seen it but I doubt that it differs much from the initial version. So I am pissed off: I spent a considerable time on this peer-review, and this was probably useless.
More importantly: European legal journals like to say that they now implement peer-review procedures, but I believe that the practical implementation of such procedures remains far from perfect, and that politics still play a huge role in the publication process. It’s nothing as it seems (as Pearl Jam said in a great song).
(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)
Nice
My excellent colleague Frédéric Marty has sent me the programme of a promising conference which will take place on 4 June 2010 in Nice (France).
The conference is organized under the auspices of GREDEG – CNRS. It is devoted to negotiated procedures (settlements and commitments) and gathers a number of top notch French lawyers and economists.
In addition, with summer approaching, Nice is a very pleasant location to stay for a WE.
See link to programme below.
affiche pour les journées de droit éco 4 juin fait le 7 mai 2010 (2)
Congrats
Hat tip and best of luck to my LL.M. students A-S. Come, M. Coquelet, M. DeVos and P. Sabbadini, who have reached the finals of the Concours Lamy de la Concurrence, and are now invited to Paris to plead their case at the French NCA. I am really proud. Congrats’ also to their coach Norman Neyrinck.
Again, our LL.M. offers unique training in antitrust and IP law, and this is just the proof of it.
Here’s a link to the subject of the concours.
Do We, AT Lawyers, need a Shrink?
This is the question which arises from the growing influence of behavioral economics in competition law.
Ahead of a conference in Vienna which will take place next week (“Industry v. Competition“, see programme below), and where I have to speak of this issue, I would like to share a thought with my readers :
There’s an irrational me that understands that economic agents do not necessarily seek to profit maximize;
There’s a rational me that thinks that this is probably the exception more than the rule. Irrationality is not, and cannot, be a good basis for devising general rules and making public policy choices. In so far as firms’ behavior is concerned, the rationality hypothesis remains indeed a reasonable assumption because most CEOs, and more generally sales agents go to business school and learn how to make informed decisions. In so far as consumers are concerned, the undisputable success of low costs business model, and customers’ increased sensitivity to price in times of crisis are blows to the irrationality hypothesis. At best, behavioral economics shall play at the margins, and inform individual decisions on particular cases where markets depart from rationality (retail banking and telcos, where consumers do not switch despite price competition).
So no, we do not need a shrink.
Chillin'Competition 
