Chillin'Competition

This is the claim made my 22 US Congresmen in a letter (see FinalSignedLetters) adressed to the US AAG, Christine Varney. An excerpt:

As you know, the EC ruled last month that Intel Corporation violated its competition law, but failed to cite evidence of actual consumer harm in its ruling. That ruling is the latest evidence of a troublesome trend in Europe toward regulatory protectionism. Other successful US technology companies – such as Microsoft, Qualcomm, Google, and IBM – have either faced significant fines, are under investigation, or reportedly are being scrutinized by the Directorate General of Competition (DG Comp) as a consequence of their successes

Now, there is an issue that this letter somewhat overlooks. Most of those cases originate from firm’s complaints, often lodged by rival US companies. To me, those cases look rather like attempts by  firms that have lost the market battle, to regain a competitive advantage through regulatory procedures/judicial action. Preston Mc Afee and Nicholas Vakkur have written a great paper on this issue: “The strategic abuse of the antitrust laws”, Journal of Strategic Management Education, Vol. 2, no. 1, 2005. And of course, DG Comp should refrain from following suit, on pain on disturbing the free market process. In addition, one may ponder whether DG Comp, and other regulators, are “ideally-placed” (in line with the wording of Reg 1/2003 and the applicable notices) to deal with issues that primarily involve US firms.  A final issue that is clearly overlooked by the letter: there is no European industry to protect from Intel, Microsoft, Google, and the likes…

For more on” strategic” complaints, see here.

(Image possibly subject to copyright. Source: Flickr)

See below for the text.

And an open question:  Is there still a point in challenging Article 82 EC decisions before the EC Courts, but for creating unhelpful case-law?

C441_07%20EN%20AGO

Image possibly subject to copyright. Source: http://www.outils-cuisine.fr/img/cocotte-minute.jpg

In a forthcoming book, Richard Susskind predicts the end of lawyers. A few good quotes of Chapter 1, extracted from the Times online:

These articles will point to a future in which conventional legal advisers will be much less prominent in society than today and, in some walks of life, will have no visibility at all. This, I believe, is where we will be taken by two forces: by a market pull towards commoditisation and by pervasive development and uptake of information technology. Commoditisation and IT will shape and characterise 21st century legal service.

Against this backdrop, I should be honest about one issue from the outset. I do not believe lawyers are self-evidently entitled to profit from the law. As I have said before, the law is not there to provide a livelihood for lawyers any more than ill-health exists to offer a living for doctors. Successful legal business may be a bi-product of law in society, but it is not the purpose of law.

…

I will argue that the market is increasingly unlikely to tolerate expensive lawyers for tasks (guiding, advising, drafting, researching, problem-solving and more) that can equally or better be discharged, directly or indirectly, by smart systems and processes. It follows that the jobs of many traditional lawyers will be substantially eroded and often eliminated. At the same time, I foresee new law jobs emerging which may be highly rewarding, even if very different from those of today.

…

My scepticism here should be evident. No lawyers should feel exempt from assessing whether at least some of their current workload might be undertaken differently in years to come. And no lawyers should shirk from the challenge of identifying their distinctive capabilities

(Picture possibly subject to copyright, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, source: http://eastwoodclint.free.fr/clint_mystique/apocalypse.jpg )

See here.

I tend to share the viewpoint that slides do not necessarily make a good speech.

The article does not mention, however, that busy speakers often try to sell  “back of the enveloppe” presentations as a surrogate for drafting a paper ahead of a conference  (the typical reply being, “Apologies,  I cannot write a paper for the conference, but I will come with some slides…“).

I attach below the slides of a presentation I delivered yesterday at the Federation for Enterprises in Belgium.  Nothing groundbreaking, simply an overview of current EC law developments.

Actualité des droits communautaire et belge de la concurrence – FEB Commission juridique

A year after the inception of the EC settlement procedure, the first settlement in a cartel case is still to happen…

Interesting Postdoc position available at the UCL. See document below.

Nicolas

CallPostdocResearcher-1