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CRA's Annual Conference takes place in Brussels

CRA's annual conference on "Economic Developments in European Competition Policy" took place in Brussels on 7 December. The programme included four Chief Economists from major European agencies (DG Competition, the UK Competition Commission, the French Autorité and the German Bundeskartellamt), as well as the Director General of DG Competition, the President of the Bundeskartellamt and of the Autorité de la concurrence, the CEO of the OFT, and a number of distinguished academic economists. Nearly 400 senior competition lawyers, corporate executives, and government regulators attended from across Europe.

The conference was opened by a keynote speech by Kai-Uwe Kühn, the Chief Economist of DG Competition, on "Accounting for Innovation in Merger Control and Antitrust Enforcement" where he discussed the evolving approach to the analysis of innovation incentives in merger proceedings. This was followed by a session chaired by Cristina Caffarra on "Exclusionary Conduct: Are Common Priorities Emerging Between the US and the EU?". Joseph Farrell, Director of the Bureau of Economics at the US FTC and Fiona Scott Morton, Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the US DoJ explained the main developments in the US. DG Competition's Chief Economist Kai-Uwe Kühn then provided the EU perspective.

The OFT's CEO John Fingleton then gave a talk about the Economics of Compliance and Deterrence drawing on a new OFT commissioned survey. With respect to the OFT's efforts, Fingleton suggested the way forward should be to put more resources into probes, particularly own-initiative cartel investigations, in order to increase the probability of detection in order to increase deterrence.

The following session covered "Market Power, Efficiency and Remedy Offences in Mergers". The panel was chaired by Raphaël De Coninck, with contributions from a panel consisting of Damien Neven of The Graduate Institute of Geneva and CRA, Steven Salop, Georgetown University and CRA, Thibaud Vergé, Chief Economist of the Autorité de la concurrence, and Howard Shelanski, Georgetown University. Neven commented on the rise of "equal treatment" remedies in recent cases that could risk harming the efficiencies of vertical mergers subject to such behavioural remedies, while Salop updated the conference on the latest developments in price pressure tests.

The morning session concluded with a session chaired by Mike Walker covering "State Aid Priorities: Rescuing Banks and Preventing Subsidy Races". Contributions were made to the debate by Gert-Jan Koopman, Deputy Director General of DG Competition, John Van Reenen, Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE and Paul Seabright from IDEI, Toulouse.

The afternoon opened with an address from Alexander Italianer, Director General, DG Competition, on "'Quantity' and 'Quality' in Economic Assessments". This was followed by a panel chaired by Matthias Pflanz, Recent Key Cases and Developments in France and Germany - with contributions from Bruno Lasserre, President of the French Autorité de la concurrence and Andreas Mundt, President of the German Bundeskartellamt. Andreas Mundt commented on forthcoming changes to German competition law, including a likely move to a SIEC test in merger control, as well as on some recent and ongoing market investigations.

The day was concluded with a session chaired by Bob Stillman on the question "Can Antitrust Prevent the Enforcement of IP Rights from Foreclosing Competition and Discouraging Innovation?" Contributions to the debate came from Bob Harris, Haas School of Business and CRA, Joshua Gans, University of Toronto, Miguel de la Mano, Chief Economist of the UK Competition Commission, Pierre Régibeau, Imperial College London and CRA, and Patrick Rey, Toulouse School of Economics. Bob Harris pointed out that our IP institutions were not designed to deal with the enormous complexity of modern technologies where a single product or standard may rely on thousands of patents and reform is needed to avoid major problems soon. Miguel de la Mano highlighted the importance of disclosure in standard setting, and Pierre Régibeau discussed the issues posed by joint litigation and patent trolls.

The available presentations can be found here.

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