Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
30 April – Conference on New EU Regulatory Framework for Electronic Communications
The Institute for European Legal Studies (IEJE) of the University of Liege will hold in Brussels on 30 April a half day conference on the new EU Regulatory Framework for Electronic Communications. My good friend Laurent de Muyter (ULg and Jones Day) has helped me bring this conference to birth. I attach the programme below.
Above is a draft logo for the Liege LLM. If you have any comments on it, please let me know.
IEJE Conference on the Next EU Communications Framework – 30 04 10
43rd Lunch Talk of the GCLC – 18 March
The 43rd Lunch Talk of the GCLC will be devoted to The Commission’s Proposed Best Practices in Antitrust Proceedings. We are delighted to have Luiz Ortiz Blanco (Garrigues) and Carles Esteva Mosso (DG COMP), to discuss the Commission’s text. The lunch talk will take place on 18 March at the Hilton Hotel in Brussels (38 Boulevard de Waterloo).
See hereafter for registration form.
Conference announcement
The University of Louvain organizes a conference on international antitrust litigation in March. See here for more.
News from the Front
Monday’s Concurrences conference at the national Parliament in Paris was great, just great. With this event and the ongoing OECD gathering, Paris this week was clearly the world’s antitrust law capital. I was particularly impressed by the speeches of J. Padilla (on behavioral economics) and B. Kovacic (on the assessment of agencies’ performance).
I wish to congratulate here Nicolas Charbit, Prof. Laurence Idot and Frederic Jenny who have made a great job organizing this event. I never went to Fordham’s Annual antitrust gathering, but from what I hear, the Concurrences event – which will take place on a yearly basis – is likely to be a strong contender in the coming years.
On a related issue: straight after J. Almunia’s first speech as the new Commissioner for competition, James Kanter from the International Herald Tribune asked me what my impressions were. See here for more.
I have been away for a few days. Regular posting activity on this blog will resume early next week.
(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)
Slides – Conference on the Google Book Settlement
I post below the slides of our conference on the Google Book Settlement. It was a very good, stimulating, event. I wish to thank again all the speakers, in particular J. Grimmelmann who flew from NY to attend, and P. Samuelson, who accepted to speak at 6.00 am, California time.
Like I said at the conference, the GBS is a textbook example of an issue that, under competition standards, may warrant regulatory intervention: (i) intricate pricing issues; (ii) enormous fixed costs and unmatchable incumbency advantages; (iii) universal service – and other policy-related – issues (availability to users inside and outside the US, privacy, risks of disruption of service, censorship, etc.). Too early to tell, but in the future, Google’s digital library may exhibit the features of a good old essential facility.
Slides A Strowel – The GBS – A True Digital Library
Slides H Muller – The view of IFLA on the GBS
Slides I Forrester – GBS – A Good Thing or a Bad Thing
Slides J Grimmelmann – Perspectives on the Settlement
A publication, an information and an explanation
My paper on competition authorities’ enforcement discretion has just been published in Concurrences. Amongst the various papers I published to date, I am really proud of this one. The reason? It embodies all the things which make research, and academic life, a thrilling job:
- It forced me to conduct research on a largely unchartered topic, and to propose an original – at least I believe – conceptual framework;
- I benefited from strong empirical input received from more than a dozen national reporters;
- The LIDC annual congress – for which I prepared the paper – was a great moment in a wonderful town. I met loads of fascinating people during the congress;
- We eventually managed, on the basis of this paper, to draft public policy proposals, which were eventually sent to competition authorities.
As to the information: the next LIDC congress will take place in Bordeaux (France), from 30 September to 3 October. To all those interested in learning how competition law and a Lafite Rotschild combine, I recommend the conference. A specific website has been created to advertise the conference.
Finally as the explanation: the past days have been increasingly busy. This explains the belated posting activity on the blog.
Conference – Google Book Settlement – 12 February 2010
We still have several seats for the conference on the Google Book Settlement next week! A new version of the programme is attached below.
IEJE-St Louis – Conference – Google Book Settlement – 12 February 2010
Half Day Conference – IP and Comp. issues arising from the Google Book Settlement – 12 February, Brussels
The Google Book Settlement is not only a US, intellectual property, issue. Its consequences may be felt in Europe and elsewhere in the world, and cover other areas, such as privacy, cultural policy, and competition law.
This is why my research institute (IEJE, University of Liege) has decided to hold, on 12 February in Brussels, a half-day conference entitled “The Google Book Settlement – The Challenge of Building a Digital Library that Benefits All”. This conference is a joint effort of the IEJE and the Centre for Innovation and Intellectual Property of the St Louis Faculties in Brussels.
20,000 visits
20,000 visits on this blog in a little more than 4 months. Beyond our expectations. Thanks to all of you.
I am today in Madrid, where Luis Ortiz Blanco and Pablo Ibanez Colomo invited me to give to lecture in the context of a competition law course intended to Spanish public officials and private practitioners. The programme is organized by the Universidad Complutense and the Instituto de Estudios Bursatiles (IEB). The brochure can be found below.
Everything you always wanted to know on the Lisbon Treaty (but were too afraid to ask)
My research institute (IEJE) organizes on 26 February in Brussels a conference on the Lisbon Treaty. We have invited top notch european law specialists. Although not my primary field of specialization, I really cannot wait for the conference (I actually think that the effect of the Lisbon Treaty on EU competition law has been somewhat underrated, will come back to this in a forthcoming paper) . Programme and registration form can be found below.
Chillin'Competition 
