14-15 June 2007, University of East Anglia, Norwich

The ESRC Centre for Competition Policy's 2007 Annual Conference boasted some prestigious speakers, who presented a truly first-rate programme for a largely, but not exclusively, law-based audience. With excellent discussion sessions following each presentation, delegates were able to get stuck into issues surrounding the presentations. The presence of a number of speakers from the US ensured further delegates were able to share ideas in a comparative way, which generated further discussion outside of the studio.

Day 1, Thursday 14 June 2007

Morning Session

Chaired by Professor Barry Rodger from the University of Strathclyde, the Conference opened with Professor Morten Hviid's overview. Wayne State University's Stephen Calkins followed, presenting "Equilibrating Tendencies in Competition Law: Implications for European Reforms". Professor Calkins discussed how the existence of robust private enforcement remedies has had an important constraining influence on substantive U.S. antitrust law: on issue after issue, U.S. law has been made more precise and narrow because of fear of private litigation abuses. He contrasted this situation with that of Europe, which has enjoyed the luxury of developing a competition law jurisprudence largely free from worries about private enforcement.

Afternoon Session

Chaired by Ali Nikpay from the Office of Fair Trading, CCP's Michael Harker presented first on "Cross-Border Mergers in the EU: Commission versus Member States", (paper here) reviewing cases where the Commission has taken action against member states, where the latter have either acted contrary to the exclusivity principle under the EC merger control regime, or have maintained in place ex ante measures with the purpose of seeking to control or deter cross-border investment in key strategic industries. Dr Harker highlighted how such cases pose serious problems for the stability of the EC merger regime.

Jonathan Galloway from the Newcastle Law School gave a presentation on "EU Merger Control: Does the Re-emergence of Protectionism Signal the Death of the "One-Stop-Shop"?", (paper here) in which he outlined how the increasing visibility of national industrial policies across the EU, which has been described as "economic protectionism", is posing a direct threat to the efficacy of the ECMR. The paper considered some recent cases, and pleaded for greater legal and commercial certainty in this murky jurisdictional area.

The last two speakers of the day, Commissioner William Kovacic and Professor Andrew Gavil, from the Federal Trade Commission and Howard University respectively, presented their entertaining and engaging paper, "Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces in Antitrust: the Role of Appellate Review". This paper observed how antitrust enforcement authority has generated institutional stresses that cause enforcement to swing repeatedly between being decentralised and centralised, and asked whether privatisation and decentralisation of competition law enforcement authority in Europe will over time lead to conflicts of interpretation and approach.

Day 2, Friday 15 June 2007

Morning Session

Chaired by Imelda Maher from University College Dublin, the mornings sessions began with CCP PhD student Firat Cengiz, who presented "Management of Networks between Competition Authorities of Different Layers in the US and the EC: Different Polities, Different Designs". This paper compared the management of networks between the competition authorities in the US and the EU and questioned whether transatlantic policy learning is possible.

Scott Hemphill, Associate Professor of Law at Columbia University, then presented "Empirical Analysis and Workable Antitrust Policy: Finding the Right Rule for Drug Patent Settlements", (paper here) in which he considers the institutional strengths and weaknesses of the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice against a backdrop of ongoing disagreement over settlement of patent litigation between brand-name drug makers and their generic rivals.

Rounding off the morning, Stephen Wilks presented "The Modernisation of European Competition Policy: Networks, Convergence and Corporate Governance". (paper here). Professor Wilks, from the University of Exeter's Department of Politics, outlined the major changes in the enforcement of the European Competition Rules and explored the apparently effective operation of the European Competition Network. He then argued that we are seeing a transition in policy enforcement with major initiatives: a turn to economics, and Americanisation, seen in the encouragement of private actions.

Afternoon Session

The final sessions were chaired by John Preston of the Department of International Development. Kati Cseres, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Amsterdam, discussed The Interface between EC Competition Law and the Competition Laws of the New Member States: Implementation or Innovation?". The analysis of this paper focused on competition law implementation in terms of whether it has been justified from the point of view of these countries' social and economic circumstances, and also evaluated the enforcement of the new competition laws, presenting a critical assessment of the harmonisation process of competition law.

Philip Marsden, Director of the Competition Law Forum and Senior Research Fellow of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, presented the final paper of the conference, "Trade, Competition and Multilateral Rule-Making: a Warping of the International Legal Order?" He discussed the interesting institutional issues for trade law, competition law and public international law that were raised by the controversial findings in the Mexico-Telecommunications case ("Telmex"), in which the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body interpreted GATS as already containing a ban on cartels and even state-authorised cartels.

Feedback from this year's conference was very positive. The UEA Drama Studio once again provided a perfect setting for the sessions, and again, bursaries were provided for international PhD students which proved a popular move, enabling many new and useful contacts to be made between visiting students and CCP members. The high standard of presentations also meant that in an interdisciplinary sense, beneficial and stimulating contacts were established and built upon between all levels of academics, whether from a law, economics, or political science background.

Conference Programme