Archive for the ‘Interesting Links’ Category
Antitrust Oscars
The significant rise in visits experienced by the blog in the past week (we had close to 3000 visits) has opened our eyes to a reality: there´s a lot of people with free time out there! That’s why, considering that nominations for the oscars were made public last week, determined to fill your spare time with entertainment, and in the spirit of that weird phrase that appears on our header¨”Relaxing whilst doing Competition Law is not an oxymoron“, we´ve put together for you a list of nominees for the best antitrust-related videos on youtube. All of them are really worth watching (although you know that THE RAID is clearly our favorite..)
Suggestions for additional nominations and/or categories are accepted. Vote for your favorite!
Best film by a competition authority
Leniency in cartel cases, by the Dutch Competition Authority.
Be the first to tell; a film on leniency, by the Swedish Competition Authority.
Best antitrust lawyer starred videos
ABA Antitrust Section kicks off year 2010/2011
Best competition law book review
Great video-reviews of the EC Competition Law Handbook 08/09 and of EC Merger Control. Really worth watching; I keep telling Nicolas that this is how he should do his reviews..) They are full of highlights.
Best non-fiction films
The lysine cartel : The real story on which the movie The Informant was based (my favourite scenes are on minutes 1.44 and 2.46). For an interview with the real Mark Whitacre see here
Bill Gates´deposition before the DOJ in the Microsoft trial. In youtube you can find the whole series (for season 1 see here), and also a compilation of greatest hits (the videos give, I think, an unfair portrayal of him so, to balance things here is his great commencement speech at Harvard). Btw, Microsoft´s Steve Ballmer has also starred a short film which escapes any definition
Best politician starred video
Chuck Norris´ Neelie Kroes´ statement (some of the best lines in the history of competition movies) after fining Intel 1 billion euros: “Intel´s latest advertising campaign proposes Intel as the sponsors of tomorrow; well, now they are the sponsors of the European tax payer” and “My vision of tomorrow for Intel, here and now; obey the law“.
The Lisbon Treaty and Competition Policy: A Story of Two Views, by Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair (from 0.40 onwards).
Best non-English speaking video
Apparently (¿?) this video deals with leniency
Best educational video “for dummies”
What is a cartel? (Unfortunately we could not nominate it for the category on best special effects)
¿Por qué la competencia importa?
Best critical video on antitrust
Don´t trust antitrust: the incredible bread machine (watch from minute 2 onwards).
An extra
A video not on competition law, but on competition in law (on 0.37 law school is compared to a situation where “you take a group of alcoholics and then open the bar for three years”, and law students are defined as “insecure, grade obsessed, status obsessed people). It also features Elizabeth Warren, one of the best professors I´ve ever seen in a classroom.
How are we doing?
For the first time ever, DG COMP has posed this question to stakeholders and citizens by carrying out a comprehensive survey about the perception of its activities.
In the framework of this exercise, two independent companies have undertaken both a qualitative survey targetted to professional stakeholders and a quantitative survey of EU citizens from all Member States.
The aggregate stakeholder report is available here, and the individual reports for the various collectives interviewed are available in the following links (companies, lawyers, economic consultancies, consumer associations, national ministries, and national competition authorities). All of these reports cover issues such as legal and economic soundness of decisions, integrity, economic effectiveness, and external communication. There are tons of interesting comments on DG COMP´s activities, too many to be summed up here. I very much recommend taking a look at these if you find time.
The survey on citizen´s perceptions about competition policy can be consulted in its full version, as well as in an abbreviated one. The results, once again, are also extremely interesting (and sometimes shocking; e.g: did you know that 29% of the Spaniards interviewed doubted that price agreements should be prohibited?).
Some curious data: in practically all Member States the percentage of citizens who believe they are sufficiently informed about competition policy is below 5%; more than 25% of Bulgarian, Slovak, Polish and Estonian citizens have no whish whatsoever in becoming more informed about this stuff; the proportion of citizens who gave a “don´t know answer or who did not consider themselves qualified to reply was highest in…Belgium!). When asked in what sector the lack of competition was causing problems for consumers, citizens pointed out at energy (44%), pharmaceutical products (25%), telecommunications and internet (21%), transport (19%), financial services (18%), and food distribution (16%).
PS. We´re not ignoring the elephant in the room (the opening of a formal investigation about Google´s allegedly abusive practices); there´ll be plenty to come on this case.
New merger guidelines in the UK and the US/ Upward Pressure on Price Index
The OFT and the Competition Commission released their joint merger guidelines yesterday. Perhaps the most significant novelty brought by the guidelines is the explicit move towards the direct assesment of effects on competition to the detriment of the classic detailed assessment of market definition.
This shift, which is logically most apparent in sections 5.4.6 to 5.4.12 of the guidelines, which deal with the analysis of unilateral effects in markets with significant product differentiation, is in line with the prevailing trend in the U.S, as reflected in the new DOJ/FTC merger guidelines (also released less than a month ago; see particularly section 6.1). Both the US and the UK guidelines seem to be strongly inspired by, and leave ample room for the application of, the “Upward Pressure on Price” index proposed by Joseph Farrell and Carl Shapiro, the leading economists at the FTC and DOJ respectively (pictured above).
In essence, the UPP index moves away from the rigidness of structural analysis (which ignores the degree of actual substitutability between heterogeneous products) towards a greater focus on diversion ratios and the value of diverted sales. A detailed explanation about this tool doesn´t belong here, but for those interested in learning some stuff about it, here are some links to the original 2008 proposal by Farrell and Shapiro as well as to an interesting paper by Joseph Simons and Malcolm Coate proposing certain refinements. Unfortunately for non-Spanish speakers, the best short summary for non-economists that I´ve read on the UPP index -authored by Eric Gippini (who has a remarkable ability to identify hot topics)- appeared in the last number of the Gaceta Jurídica de la UE y de la Competencia (not available online). We´ll certainly be hearing a lot about the “UPP” index from now onwards.
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.
New Website of the Belgian Competition Authority
See here.
The new website looks very professional and the information is easily accessible. Much welcome initiative.
(Image possibly subject to copyright. Source: http://forum.belmont.edu/cornwall/we-have-moved.jpg)
Chillin'Competition 
