Archive for the ‘Lunch talks and other events’ Category
Discriminatory online advertising – Upcoming events
As Pablo noted yesterday, my blogging urgers trump doctor’s recommendations; I figured that if Cervantes could write Don Quijote with one hand I could at least try typing a couple of posts on competition law single handedly..
We’ve undertaken a search for the most relevant competition law events to be held in February, and decided to advertise the results here. Coincidentally (or not) the events shown below are related either to friends or to us. We are aware that promoting one’s own stuff has for some become a risky business, but oh well…
On 1 February 2013 we will be holding a seminar on recent developments in relation to Article 101 within the framework of the IEB course in Madrid. Eric Gippini Fournier and Fernando Castillo de la Torre have come up with a great line-up of speakers: Viktor Bottka (Legal Service); Pablo Ibañez Colomo (LSE) and Luis Ortiz Blanco (Garrigues) will be dealing with object/effect issues; Cani Fernández (Cuatrecasas), Marisa Tierno Centella (DG Comp until recently, now CNC) and Fernando Castillo will speak about sanctions (fines, leniency and private enforcement); Lorena Boix (DG Connect), Helena Larsson Haug (DG Comp) and Ainhoa Veiga (Araoz&Rueda) will focus on online distribution and distribution of digital works. For further info you can drop me a line (alfonso.lamadrid@garrigues.com)
On Friday 8 February at 12.00 h. there will be a Global Competition Law Centre lunch talk in Brussels on “Google Search Engines and Competition Law“. The speakers will be Anne Perrot, Cédric Argenton and myself (photo taken on 30 December..). Click here for further info and registration. (I’ve already checked all the publicly available materials about the European Commission’s investigation (piece of cake since there are practically none) and I’m in the process of reading relevant U.S. materials, national cases and academic papers; I’d be very grateful in case any of you could recommend any particularly interesting materials.
On a larger scale, on 22 February 2013 our friends at Concurrences will be holding the New Frontiers of Antitrust 2013 conference at the Assamblée nationale in Paris. This conference has earned its place among the top competition law events of the year. Even though it’s not cheap, it’s always packed, so that should tell you something about the quality of the sessions. For info and registration see here. As you will see in the program, the interface between data protection and competition law will be one of the main topics dealt with; we’ll provide you with some personal views on this non-?issue soon.
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?
Thoughts on Transfer of Technology, and More
At today’s GCLC lunch talk on transfer of technology agreements, a number of thoughts sprung to mind. Here they are.
- As part of our professional ethics, we competition lawyers should stop saying that IP confers a form of “monopoly” on its owner. Like property rights over tangible goods, IP – I talk here essentially of patents – confers property. A patent confers property over the usage of technical specifications, full stop. But – and this is a big But – IP does not imply, as the term monopoly suggests, the absence of alternative technical specifications. On many markets, several IP compete for a given product, service, functionality.
- Aren’t we over-regulating the issue of standard-essential patents? There’s no robust evidence that patent thickets are a widespread + harmful phenomenon. However, as a result of the mass-mediatization of several cases, and of the possible inability of the Commission to deal with those cases swiftly and thoroughly, we are heading towards the adoption of general rules in a range of soft law instruments. Last year, we got a new section on standardisation in the Guidelines on Horizontal Cooperation Agreements. The upcoming revised TTBER and its set of accompanying Guidelines may just bring about more rules. As a matter of principle, I would question such an approach, absent empirical case-related evidence.
- The use of “double negatives” in the list of hardcore restrictions should be avoided. D. Woods said the Commission would make some thinking on this. And I trust most EU competition law students would be grateful if the Commission made progress on this.
- The SEP=SMP shortcut is misconceived. It fails to grasp that several standards, or non-standardized technologies can compete for a given functionality, product, service. Moreover, standardization is a repeated game, so any attempt by a SEP holder to raise fees may be sanctioned at a later stage by other standard participants. And finally, SEP holders must often obtain licences from other SEP holders.
- A speaker made the point that it would be counterintuitive if participants to patent pools had to pay experts to determine on an ongoing basis whether the patents are valuable (or not) and in turn should (or not) stay in the pool. It is indeed a little weird to pay someone and entrust him with the mission, and power, to kick you out. And there are other risks: conflict of interest, bribes, etc. But aren’t most trade associations paid by their members, and yet keep a right to exclude participants if the membership conditions are no longer met?
- A popular policy argument to discard the need (and legitimacy) of antitrust intervention is that contemplated market failures are caused by regulatory frameworks. And the argument logically follows that regulatory defects should be solved by bringing changes to the regulatory framework, not by applying the competition rules. This argument has been made in virtually all sectors of the economy that have attracted antitrust scrutiny in the past decades, e.g. pharma, financial markets, telecoms, etc. I have, myself, made this point in a number of papers, but I have second thoughts on it now. Whilst I still believe that pieces of legislation adopted under a fully democratic procedure should not be undermined by ex post bureaucratic competition enforcement, I am also a pragmatist. In this respect, I tend to consider that antitrust enforcement may bring quicker, and better fixes, than protracted regulatory action (for instance, a reform of the IP system in the case of patent thickets). Plus antitrust enforcement is more reversible than regulatory action (in case of mistake). And finally reforms of regulatory regimes just have corrective effects for the future, and do not address existing problems…
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.
Short Notice – Evening Policy Talk with J. Fingleton on 22 May
The Global Competition Law Centre will host J. Fingleton (OFT) on 22 May in the context of its Evening Policy Talk series.
More information can be found here.
This will likely be a stimulating talk. I hope to see many of you there.
Economics in competition law
Nicolas’ post from yesterday was somewhat of a declaration of lawove to economics. However, as the post noted, in my personal case this love is not at all unconditional.
Nico’s post stated that the “reptilian reflex of dismissing economics as a source of legal uncertainty is misguided“, but acknowledged that “on this point Alfonso has more nuanced views that he will develop here“.
So, here they are.
Those “more nuanced views” have been recently developed in a couple of pieces co-written by Luis Ortiz Blanco and by myself (one was presented at Fordham’s Annual Conference and the other at a GCLC Annual Conference, and both are about to be published as part of the proceedings of these two events). In these papers we argue that the growing influence of economics in competition law enforcement has brought about many positive consequences, but that we should be mindful of letting the about pendulum swing too far. We submit that there is a limit to the concessions that a legal regime can make without renouncing its nature, and that effects-based legality tests might approach decision-making to economic divination to the prejudice of legal certainty.
I’m conscious that these thoughts may not appear be shared by the mainstream (I don’t expect them to make me the most popular guy if I go to Place Lux for a drink tonight). Nevertheless, I do tend to think that there is a silent large minority/majority that supports these ideas. In fact, a very prominent European Commission official read outloud the following paragraphs from one of our papers at a conference held two or three months ago (by the way: he said he liked them, not that he endorsed them), and invited the attendants to reflect on them:
(If interested, click here to continue reading)
The Gap
Competition law is like Gruyere cheese.
It is a savory discipline, which is also full of holes and gaps.
Think of the “oligopoly gap“, and the dozens of studies devoted to the notion of collective dominance in the past twenty years.
Think also of the “unilateral effects” gap, in relation to mergers falling below the single firm dominance threshold.
Think, finally, to the current “enforcement gap” in so far as positive decisions are concerned (i.e. Article 101(3) decisions and Article 10 decisions under Regulation 1/2003).
With all this, it seems competition specialists are experts at identifying gaps in the existing legal framework. In this context, the GCLC will devote its next lunch talk to the prospective, unsettled question of whether minority shareholdings should be covered under the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR). This possible gap was identified long ago already, but the issue has been revived in the context of the Ryan Air/Aer Lingus case, and following a statement of Commissioner Almunia at the 20th anniversary of the EUMR.
The event will take place in Brussels on 16 March. We have invited C. Rakovsky (DG COMP), G. Berrisch (Covington & Burling) and Y. Botteman (Steptoe and Johnson) to talk at this event. I will not be able to attend because I will be teaching in Russia. But our President B. Van de Walle de Ghelcke will make, as usual, a terrific job chairing the event.
New seminars in Madrid (and a secret)
I´m flying to Madrid today to speak tomorrow at a seminar coordinated by Eric Gippini and Fernando Castillo de la Torre (both from the European Commission´s Legal Service) within the XV European and Spanish Competition Law Course directed by Luis Ortiz.
The day program for tomorrow features (i) a discussion on “Investigative meaures and fundamental rights” with Ralf Sauer (European Commission´s Legal Service), Salomé Santos (British Foods), Rafael Baena (Ashurts) and Diego Castro Villacañas (Spanish Competition Authority); (ii) a panel on the functioning of the European Competition Network and the evolution of the decentralized enforcement system during 2011 with Ewoud Sakkers (Head of Unit at DG Comp), Rafael Allendesalazar (MLAB) and Diego Castro Villacañas (CNC); and (iii) a debate on novelties and case-law developments with regard to vertical agreements with Andrés Font (Gibson Dunn), Bernard Mongin (European Commission´s Legal Service) and myself. All the panel discussions will be moderated by Eric and Fernando. Registrations are now closed, but if any of our Spain-based readers is interested in attending you can drop me a line and we can try to arrange it.
Not that I´m objective, but coming to Madrid for this is always great fun. I´ll tell you a secret: one of the greatest attractives of coming to speak at this course are the post-conference dinner+drinks social events (in fact, Nicolas is still on a diet since his last visit two weeks ago; he´s back on Tuesday, so he´ll have to quit soon). The pic illustrating this post is actually from the entrance of the place where such events generally kick-off. (It´s also probably one of the places where I spend more time when I´m around, right after the office and home).
On February 24th there will be another seminar on “Recent Developments on Abuse of Dominance and Merger Control” coordinated by Cecilio Madero (Deputy Director General at DG Comp) and myself. Amongst other topics, this seminar will feature an interesting discussion on the prohibition decision adopted by the Commission in the Deutsche Borse/NYSE Euronext merger. The program for this seminar will soon be out. We´ll keep you posted.
An algorithm for competition law conferences
Last week was a very weird one. I spent almost as much time at competition law conferences than at the office. Here is a brief account of how the week went and of the thoughts that this conference overdose triggered:
As I have already mentioned on this blog, on Tuesday I participated at a workshop entitled “What is happening to Article 101 TFEU?” organized by Giorgio Monti at the European University Institute in Fiesole (as you know, Prof. Monti´s idea to hold this workshop was “inspired” by some discussions on this blog). The presentations by Giorgio Monti, Saskia King, Eric Gippini and Luis Ortiz and the discussion we had were all extremely interesting. I was overwhelmed by how smart (an genuinely nice and funny) the group was both during the workshop and outside of it. We tried to make sense out of the object/effect dichotomy and talked at length about what really is a restriction of competition as well as about the “deaths” of restrictions by effect and of Article 101(3). It´s a pity that only a small group could attend. On the plane back to Brussels, Eric, Luis and I mentioned that perhaps we could try to write a brief piece with our “non-mainstream” ideas some time soon. I´ll make sure that they don´t forget about it.
On Wednesday Charles River Associates (CRA) held its annual conference in Brussels. I attended most of the morning sessions and I have to say that the event was a great success. As excellent economists, these guys are conscious of the power of “FREE”. They deserve recognition for holding a free very high quality conference in Brussels.
Then on Thursday there was a lunch talk at the GCLC on the Menarini Judgment. I couldn´t attend, but all I hear is that the speakers were truly brilliant.
The reason I couldn´t attend the GCLC event is that at the same time I was speaking at yet another conference: the International Symposium on Competition Policy organized by the Centre for Parliamentary Studies. I was invited to this event following a recommendation from Nicolas (I really owe you one here, mate -please note the irony-). I was supposed to deliver the final keynote speech on “The future of EU Competition Policy“. I had prepared what I thought to be a fairly original and humorous prediction of what I think will certainly happen in the short term, of what should happen in the medium tem, and of what will inevitably happen in the long term. I´m not very sure that my messages will have the impact I´d hoped for: the audience was composed by two people from the Namibian competition authority, two members of the Malaysian competition Commission, a member of the Danish Ministry of Economic Affairs, a Scot from the Water Industry Commission, and my colleague Napoleón Ruiz who threatened me with taking pictures. Jokes aside, it was fun.
So many hours of sitting at these and other recent events made one thoughts spring to mind: I wouldn´t need the expertise of my friends at CRA to come up with an ad hoc algorithm or formula with which to predict how interesting a competition law conference is supposed to be. The general rule (subject, of course, to exceptions) is easy: the likelihood of getting to listen to new and interesting stuff is inversely proportional to the combination of three cumulative variables: the price of the event, the number of attendees, and the number and lenght of slide decks. It´s generally not a good sign if an event is pricy and crowded. The ones with a greater chance of not being interesting at all are those for which you have to pay in order to be a spayeaker (yes, there are plenty of those!). (Not that so many people care anyway, since some of these events are mainly about networking, a.k.a “free” drinks and nibbles + some gossiping).
That´s why the 1st Chillin´Competition Conference should also be free. We only have to figure out minor details, such us how to pay for it.. Here are some options: Voluntary contributions? Sponsoring? A lottery for a date with Nicolas?
Ideas welcome…
Judicial Review and Article 6(1) ECHR
With the Menarini judgment, the ECHR has demonstrated that it has nothing to envy to other Courts in terms of cryptic reasoning.
There are indeed two ways to read this judgment. If you follow what the Court says as a matter of principle, the EU judicial review system is not Article 6(1) compliant. Remember, the ECHR says that review courts should have full jurisdiction in competition matters. In the current state of affairs, the GC does not have full jurisdiction on all aspects of a case, and particularly not when it comes to “complex economic assessments“.
But if you read what the ECHR says on the facts, the EU judicial review system might well be Article 6(1) compliant. In casu, the Court considers that the Italian system of limited (or “weak“) judicial review is arguably akin to full jurisdiction (!) and thus compatible with the ECHR. This is obviously fictitious. On close examination, no such intense review exists under Italian law. Yet, the ECHR contends that the Italian review courts “ont pu examiner le bien-fondé et la proportionnalité des choix de l’AGCM et même vérifier ses évaluations d’ordre technique” (§64). With this ruling, the treshold for full jurisdiction comes real low…
Today, the ECJ just chose which of those two readings prevails in the EU. In its KME v. Commission ruling, handed down today, the Court states at §133 that:
“The review provided for by the Treaties thus involves review by the Courts of the European Union of both the law and the facts, and means that they have the power to assess the evidence, to annul the contested decision and to alter the amount of a fine. The review of legality provided for under Article 263 TFEU, supplemented by the unlimited jurisdiction in respect of the amount of the fine, provided for under Article 31 of Regulation No 1/2003, is not therefore contrary to the requirements of the principle of effective judicial protection in Article 47 of the Charter“.
I attach hereafter the slides presented by Marco Bronckers at today’s GCLC lunch talk: GCLC – Menarini 8 12 11REV
Chillin'Competition 
