Chillin'Competition

So far so good. The first BSC seminars were a great success. Simon Bishop (and B. Durand) are truly great speakers.

As some of you may have seen, we have decided to offer the BSC seminars on a modular basis. Because we are capacity constrained (we already have a good bunch of students), we can only accomodate a few registrations.

The next seminar is starting this Friday. J. Ysewyn and E. Sakkers will teach the law and econs of cartels for 15 hours.

For more info, please contact Pierre Sabbadini at psa@vbo-feb.be

There’s only a few excellent speakers on the AT conference circuit. I though I knew most of them.

At yesterday’s Amcham annual conference, I had the great pleasure to meet Bill Batchelor (Baker McKenzie).

Bill is certainly one of the best speakers I met in the past months. Lively, funny and to the point. He made an excellent presentation on a very complex, and possibly borying, subject, i.e. tying and rebates.

I attach his slides  below.

Bill Batchelor – AMCHAM – TYING REBATES

(PS: for my part, I had the difficult task of delivering a talk just after him. I talked about  tying-law post Microsoft. A paper, that I am co-writing with my assistant Norman Neyrinck, will shortly be released on this website).

I attach the slides of our ppt. presentation on judicial review in competition law cases (delivered at the GCLC annual conference last week). A paper will shortly be posted on ssrn.

Slides DG – JUDICIAL REVIEW IN EUROPEAN UNION COMPETITION LAW

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The funniest market sharing agreement ever (video in French).  Thanks to Sonia for the pointer.

Went really well, a good group of students (around 30 of them), mostly in-house lawyers.

Great infrastructure and very stimulating course. Am hungry for more.

Thanks also to Alfonso for accepting to talk to my students in Liege.

… and I am exhausted. I have a good group of students (around 50 attending the EU competition law course), and about 23 LL.M. students.

I am also busy preparing for the GCLC annual conference, as well as the first lecture at the Brussels School of Competition.

The idea of this post came while having lunch in the centre of Brussels (I am definitely a competition geek).

Until recently, Noordzee (on the left side of the picture) enjoyed a local monopoly on the market for fast fish-seafood standing meals in the centre of Brussels (my shot at this somewhat original market definition). Their business concept was simple: you eat and drink outside, standing.

I was, with loads of other customers, a great fan of Noordzee. Yet, ordering there  involved queuing, eating in uncomfortable conditions,and possibly supra competititive pricing.

A while  ago, a restaurant located on the other side of the street (ABC on the right side) decided to replicate Nordzee’s business concept. ABC installed tables on the outside and started to serve customers just as Noordzee had done in the past.

Everyone, including Noordzee seems to withdraw benefits from this expansion/entry. Noordzee has reduced queuing time and increased consumer satisfaction. In addition, the optics of having an increased number of people around the restaurants is good in terms of brand image and advertisement. I am not sure, however, that prices have plummeted. Tacit collusion may be the reason there.

(Picture subject to copyrights. Source: taken with my mobile phone earlier in the day)

In our small epistemic community, many people view antitrust law as a superiorly complex subject – one which laymen cannot understand. Also, I have noticed that many antitrust professionnals display little humility, and view themselves as superiorly intellectual (I hope I am not concerned).

Now, if you wanna see real “brains“, please check this truly superb documentary on Fermat’s theorem.

Found on optimum.

Check this (in French language)

Were De Gaulle and his fellows really hostile to free-market policies and competition?

Thanks to Pierre Honore for the pointer.

(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)