Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
The Friday PowerPoint
I attach below the presentation I gave today at the GCLC annual conference. It deals with the nexus between competition enforcement and industrial policy.
A rough 45 pager, co-penned with my assistant Norman Neyrinck, was circulated to the participants.
BTW, I am contemplating moving to Prezi, and leave the conventional PowerPoint world. Anyone with feedback on this?
HK
As reported earlier on this blog, Hong Kong recently joined the league of jurisdictions with a domestic competition regime.
On this occasion, CCH Wolter Kluwers organized a one day conference to discuss forthcoming challenges for the new law.
I was one of the happy many to be invited to the conference, together with a bunch of lawyers from Brussels, Beijing, Australia and the United States.
Now, our Hong Kong friends might be pondering how to apply their new law, they know how to throw a good event. Everything was perfect. Congrats’ in particular to Shirley Hon and Simon Bellamy for the superb organisation.
The level of the discussions was by all standards very high. You could tell the speakers had put time and energy in their presentations. Not the usual quick and dirty, taxi-drive preparation. I personally gave a talk entitled “New Challenges for XXIst Century Competition Authorities” where I identify 5 new enforcement challenges, and 4 new substantive ones. My ppt is available at the end of this post.
The after-conference evening was also a success. There was a cocktail reception, which was followed by rounds of free cocktails, courtersy of Kluwer (no kidding here). With a bunch of enthusiastic conference participants (including several speakers), we then moved to Lan Kwai Fung where we had a lot of fun. I then took a few days off, enjoyed the sun and did some trekking with an old friend who relocated there.
The bottom-line: it was a fantastic trip. And I must confess that since I came back, I have been looking once or twice if academic positions were available in the region…
Presentation – New Challenges for 21st Century Competition Authorities – HK [Mode de compatibilité]
GCLC Annual Conference – 8 and 9 November
Back from HK where I had a great time. Will report on this later in the week.
As I am currently working on a paper for the forthcoming GCLC Annual Conference, I just realised we had not advertised this event on the blog.
So here we go. On 8 and 9 November, the GCLC will hold its Eighth Annual Conference. This 2012 edition is entitled “Competition law in times of economic crisis: In need for adjustment?” More information on the programme can be found here.
As usual, working groups have drafted reports which will be commented upon – inter alia – by Commission officials.
This undoubtedly will be a promising event. Unfortunately, I had to breach ethical rule n°3; “do not take speaking slots at conferences that you organize”. The explanation? Most of the persons we contacted to draft the paper on industrial policy and competition law – including my learned co-blogger – turned our invitation down. So I ended up filling this slot. But this is a great honour, and am very happy to do this.
PS: Alfonso and I have just decided that will be no more Chuck Norris jokes on this blog :(.
7th Junior Competition Conference – Call for speakers
In our last post we stated that one of our goals for the future is to contribute to increasing the visibility of young lawyers. Here’s a way to start:
We would like to draw your attention to the Seventh Junior Competition Conference. The editors of the Competition Law Journal have informed us that the Conference will take place on Friday 25 January 2013 and will be dedicated to reform of the system of private enforcement in the UK; for further details please click here.
If you would like to speak at the conference, please contact Vian Quitaz – vjquitaz@hotmail.com – with an expression of interest and a short outline of your proposed topic.
A separate announcement will be made in due course for those interested in attending the Conference.
The editors of the Journal look forward to hearing from you!
And speaking of younger generations, we recommend you take a look at this: Tournament of Jokes: Generational Tension in Large Law Firms
Conference on Fines, 3 December 2012
On 3 December 2012, TILEC and the Liege Competition & Innovation Institute (LCII, under construction) will hold in Brussels a one day event entitled:
Deterring EU Competition Law Infringements:
Are We Using the Right Sanctions?
This event will gather prominent speakers including judges from the EU and the US, Commission officials, academics, practitioners and in-house counsels.
I attach the programme below.
This is undoubtedly one of the hotest issues in modern EU competition law. Hopefully, after this event, we’ll see a little clearer on what needs to be done to achieve optimal deterrence.
Download full programme and registration form:
Deterring Competition Law Infringements – Conference Programme and Registration Form
XVI Edition of the Competition Law Program at the IEB (Madrid)
For 15 years now Luis Ortiz Blanco has been directing a top-notch competition law course in Madrid, which is actually where Nico and I first met. I took this program as a student already 8 years ago, have lectured on it since then, and this year I’m starting to co-direct it together with Luis.
The line-up of more than 50 high-profile guest speakers who come every year from all over Europe to lecture in Madrid is a true Who’s Who of EU competition law experts. Moreover, the 115 hours of scheduled classes allow for a more detailed coverage than that offered by many other competition law courses on the market. About half of the course is lectured in English. Price wise the course is unbeatable: full registration is available for only 3,000 euros.
The final program for each module and seminar has yet to be confirmed, but the overall structure and dates have been set, so I’ve included the info below. Anyone interested can register both for the full program or just for specific module/s or seminar/s. Anyone interested in more information can contact me at alfonso.lamadrid@garrigues.com
The 2013 program will be structured as follows:
– An inaugural/introductory session will take place on January 11.
– A module on cartels (coordinated by myself) will be held on January 14-16.
– A module on other restrictive agreements and practices (coordinated by Juan Andrés García Alonso; Peugeot) will take place on January 21-23.
– On February 1 there will be a seminar on recent developments in relation to Art. 101 (coordinated by Fernando Castillo de la Torre and Eric Gippini Fournier, both from the Legal Service of the European Commission).
– A module on abuse of dominance (coordinated by Alvaro Ramos; Legal Director at Cisco Systems) will be held on February 4-6.
– A module on merger control (coordinated by Jerónimo Maíllo; San Pablo CEU University) will be held on February 11-13.
– A seminar on competition law and regulation in network industries (coordinated by myself) will be held on February 18-20;
– A module on the application of competition and state aid rules to public entities (coordinated by José Luis Buendía; Partner at Garrigues) will take place on February 28- March 1.
– A seminar on recent developments in abuse of dominance and merger control coordinated by Cecilio Madero (Deputy Director General for Antitrust at DG COMP), Nicholas Banasevic and Per Hellström (both Heads of Unit at DG COMP) will be held on March 8.
– A seminar on competition law and IP (coordinated by Álvaro Ramos; Legal Director at Cisco Systems) will take place on March 15.
European Law Moot Court Competition 2012/13
The 2012/2012 edition of the European Law Moot Court Competition (ELMC) is on, and this edition’s case is pretty much about competition law (you can download the case by clicking here) (the competition’s rules are available here).
The ELMC is a great initiative (for an overview of its history click here) that has introduced many to the beauty of EU Law (how geekish did that sound?). As such, it deserves all possible pubicity.
If you’re reading this and you’re a student, you should seriously consider participating (Nico and I unfortunately never did, but all of our friends who took part on the competition speak wonders about it).
As a way of humbly contributing to this initiative, the winning team will be invited to discuss the competition law aspects of the case here.
Conference – EU Competition Law and Financial Markets
On 22 November 2012, the Brussels School of Competition (BSC) and the Liege Competition and Innovation Institute (LCII) will hold in Brussels a joint conference on Competition Law and Financial Markets.
Issues covered span the emerging role of competition law amidst large scale price fixing allegations in the financial industry, open and fair access to financial infrastructure, competition in credit rating services, the trade-off between competition enforcement and financial stability, the impact of prudential rules, etc.
No State aid on the menu, there’s been far too many events devoted to this topic in recent months.
To discuss those issues, we have invited a range of triple A experts, including EU Commission and ECB officials, industry representatives, lawyers as well as leading academics.
More info on the programme can be found here. The registration form is accessible via this hyperlink.
Intel Hearing at the General Court today
The Court hearing in the Intel case started today in Luxembourg.
Aoife White from Bloomberg has written a piece on it in which she quotes my view that, following the Tomra Judgment, Intel’s chances of having the fine annulled or reduced appear to lie more on procedural than on substantive grounds.
Thanks to a a very kind Luxembourg-based reader of this blog we can make the Court’s report for the hearing available to you: Intel Report Hearing
Self promotion
We like to self promote at chillin’competition.
For instance, you will have noticed from yesterday’s post that Alfonso likes to incidentally recall that he works on a pending case against a giant US corporation.
So I take my turn to self promote a little, with a recap on recent and forthcoming chillin’competition-related activities:
- I was in Helsinki with my friend Miguel Rato (Shearman & Sterling). We were invited to deliver a presentation at the 11th Annual Conference of the Association of European Competition Law Judges (AECLJ). With 60 judges from accross Europe in the room (including judges from Luxemburg), Richard Whish, Alexander Italianer and Nick Banasevic on the podium, this was a very challenging talk. I attach the presentation here: Slides – Petit & Rato – Abuse in Technology-Enabled Markets – 11th AECLJ Conference (14 06 12. A paper on “Abuse in Technology-Enabled Markets” is in the making;
- The registration process for the 2012/2013 edition of the LLM in Competition Law & Economics at the Brussels School of Competition is now opened. We have a new brochure in which you will find a number of changes. A teaser: F. Jenny will teach on abuse with JF. Bellis, Alfonso’s existence is now official and several ***** economists have joined;
- We have a GCLC lunch talk this Friday, on the Commission’s review on the rules on technology transfer agreements. Our speakers are Donncadh Woods (DG Competition), Frédéric Louis (WilmerHale) and Paul Lugard (Tilburg Institute for Law and Economics (TILEC) and ICC Commission on Competition);
- Ana Paula Martinez (Levy & Salomao) is the editor of a new, impressive volume entitled Temas Atuais de Direito da Concorrencia with written contributions (in English) from S. Salop, E. Elhauge, D. Geradin, Mariana Tavares de Araujo, Ian S. Forrester and Francisco Enrique González-Díaz. Here’s the leaflet and table of contents: GED_LS-#845180-v1-2012_Brazil_Competition_Book
- I was in Strasbourg yesterday to lecture on IP and competition law at the CEIPI and I will be in Bruges tomorrow to give a presentation at the 8th ELEA symposium. It is a very busy week, like last week… and hopefully unlike next week.
Chillin'Competition 