2020 ICN NGA Toolkit
The ICN has created a new guide for NGA engagement. This NGA toolkit has been produced to provide guidance to member agencies and to existing and prospective NGAs on NGA engagement. NGAs are competition experts from all backgrounds – lawyers and economists in private practice, inhouse
counsels, representatives of non-governmental international organizations, members of industry and consumer groups, academics and judges – who volunteer to contribute to the ICN’s work.
ICN Steering Group Statement: Competition during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic
Today the ICN Steering Group issued a statement addressing key considerations related to competition law enforcement during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Link to Statement (also available in Portuguese)
The statement recognizes the unprecedented challenges that competition agencies are facing to maintain their enforcement missions during the pandemic. The statement reaffirms the relevance of competition to economies in crisis and urges member agencies to remain vigilant to anti-competitive conduct during the crisis. The statement recognizes the ability of agencies to evaluate and consider good faith efforts and limited collaborations among competitors to provide needed goods and services in making enforcement decisions, in line with applicable laws. It also encourages transparency with respect to operational and policy changes during the crisis and supports member agency advocacy efforts to promote competition as a guiding principle for economic recovery efforts in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The ICN Steering Group also noted its continued efforts to cooperate and share experiences across the network of competition enforcers during this challenging time.
2020 ICN Merger Workshop
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is pleased to be hosting the 2020 ICN Merger Workshop, which will be held on Thursday 27 February and Friday 28 February at the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins in Melbourne, Australia.
The Workshop will build around the foundation question ‘How can authorities achieve the right balance in their approach to merger review in a changing market environment?’ through a range of topical plenary and small group sessions designed to cater to a broad range of interests among ICN Merger Working Group members and non-governmental advisors (NGAs).
ICN Merger Working Group member authorities and NGAs nominated by their member authority are invited to participate in the Workshop.
Registration for the Workshop is now open. Please register at 2020 ICN Merger Workshop registration, preferably by 1 December 2019 but no later than 24 January 2020.
For further information, please visit the ICN Merger Workshop 2020 website.
2019 ICN Cartel Workshop
2019 ICN Cartel Workshop
The Administrative Council for Economic Defense of Brazil will host the 2019 ICN Cartel Workshop, in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, from 7 to 10 October 2019. The venue of the workshop will be the Wish Resort Golf Convention.
The theme of the workshop is “Cartels in the Age of Data-Driven Economy” and it will focus on the paradoxical impact of data on cartels since it can be used to facilitate collusion and also help agencies to detect cartels. Some of the topics that will be discussed at the event are: delineation of cartel activities in a changing business environment; challenges and information management for data-driven markets; antitrust liability for software-based infringements; intelligence and screening tools; effective leniency and evidence assessment in the digital era; due process and cooperation tools.
The 2019 ICN Cartel Workshop is an invitation-only event. The admission will be reserved for ICN Competition Authorities members and NGAs.
For more information, please access https://icncartelworkshop2019.cade.gov.br/.
2019-22 Working Group Work Plans
Now presenting the 2019-22 ICN Working Group work plans
2019 Annual Conference Press Release
ICN’s 18th Annual Conference concluded today in Cartagena, Colombia.
See the ICN’s Press Release linked and in text below.
NEWS RELEASE, 17 MAY 2019
CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA
Today, the International Competition Network (ICN) concluded its 18th annual conference with approval of new work on procedural fairness, vertical mergers, enforcement cooperation, agency organizational design, leniency, private enforcement, and vertical restraints. The conference took place 15-17 May in Cartagena, Colombia, hosted by Colombia’s Superintendencia de Industria y Comercio (SIC). Approximately 500 ICN member agency representatives, private sector non-governmental advisers, academics, and representative of other international organizations from over 80 jurisdictions attended the conference.
In his opening speech Andreas Mundt stated “There is no official overarching theme for the conference, but the clear focus is on two topics, first, on the digital economy, and second, on investigative process. The ICN CAP is a huge step forward in this regard.”
The plenary sessions inter alia dealt with the question of how agencies can uncover and punish cartels in the digital era, the assessment of dominance in digital and high tech sectors and agency restructuring to meet the challenges of digitalisation. A session limited to agency heads also focussed on digital issues.
The ICN introduced two new instruments on procedural fairness in competition law investigations and enforcement proceedings. The ICN Framework for Competition Agency Procedures (CAP) went into effect with over 60 agency participants. The CAP is an opt-in implementation framework with fundamental procedural fairness principles backed by cooperation and review provisions. The CAP principles are fully consistent with the extensive work of the ICN in this field, reflecting the broad consensus within the global competition community. The CAP allows for agency-to-agency dialogues to increase understanding of differences in agency procedures. It also promotes transparency about agency procedural rules through templates that explain how each participant’s procedures match CAP principles. The CAP is ICN’s third opt-in framework joining enforcement cooperation frameworks on mergers and cartels. The deadline for founding members is Wednesday, 22 May.
The ICN approved new Recommended Practices for Investigative Process (RPs) that address key procedural fairness themes of appropriate use of investigative tools, transparency, engagement with subjects or parties, agency decision making safeguards, and confidentiality. The ICN RPs are its highest-level consensus statements on procedural fairness practices approved by its membership.
The detailed recommendations for agency practices in the RPs, and the basic principles and implementation framework in the CAP provide a comprehensive package of procedural fairness guidance for competition agencies. The ICN’s consensus work on procedural fairness puts its member agencies voices at the forefront of international norm-setting on this important topic.
The ICN membership approved new work at the conference addressing several areas of competition law and policy. On cartels, the ICN approved new, detailed Good Practices for incentivising leniency, providing practical advice to agency on useful practices that have worked well around the world. The ICN’s cartel working group also produced a new report on the interaction of private and public enforcement. The ICN’s merger working group produced new practical tools for enforcement cooperation, including considerations for the types of information that can be shared, and an innovative comparative report on approaches to vertical merger analysis. On the topic of unilateral conduct, the ICN introduced its most comprehensive work on vertical restraints, a new comparative evaluation of approaches to common hypothetical cases studies. The conference also included the announcement of the winners of the 2018-2019 ICN-World Bank Competition Advocacy Contest. For more information on the contest, see https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2018/12/06/2018-2019-competition-advocacy-contest#4.
The ICN also announced that its 2020 annual conference will take place in the United States, hosted by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
The ICN, founded in 2001, is the most inclusive and productive competition agency-led collaboration, with 139 member agencies from 126 jurisdictions. The ICN’s mission is to promote convergence of practices and cooperation among agencies.
All of the ICN’s work produce is available on its website at: https://internationalcompetitionnetwork.org/
2019 Annual Conference Work Product
Now presenting the proposed work product for the ICN 2019 Annual Conference! (ICN work product is finalized and posted within Working Group portfolios after the conference following membership approval the conference.)
Framework for Competition Agency Procedures
On April 3, 2019, the International Competition Network’s Steering Group members
approved the international Framework on Competition Agency Procedures (CAP).
The CAP is an “opt-in” framework, open to all competition agencies, aimed as an
implementation tool to advance basic fairness principles among all competition
authorities. While the CAP is inspired by ICN members and is supported by its
resources, its implementation structure allows for additional cooperation among
participants and is open to competition agencies that are not ICN members as well.
2019 ICN Annual Conference
2019 ICN Annual Conference
The Colombian Superintendence of Industry and Commerce will host the 2019 International Competition Network (ICN) Annual Conference, in Cartagena, Colombia, from 15 to 17 May 2019. The venue for the conference will be Hotel Las Americas, Cartagena. The 2019 Annual Conference will be the 18th annual conference hosted under ICN auspices. During the conference, discussions will focus on strategies related to digital economy, innovation, market definitions and the role of the competition policy since the different perspectives of the ICN.
The ICN Annual Conference is an invitation only event. The admission will be reserved for ICN Competition Authorities members and NGAs. The Colombian Superintendence of Industry and Commerce looks forward to welcoming ICN member agencies and NGAs from across the globe to Cartagena in May 2019.
For more information see: http://serviciosweb.sic.gov.co/icn-annual-conference-2019/
2019 ICN Advocacy Workshop
The 2019 ICN Advocacy Workshop was hosted in Kyiv. Under the theme of “Competition Advocacy: from Barriers to Prosperity,” the two-day event gathered more than 100 competition officials, advocacy professionals, lawyers, economists and academics from about 60 enforcement agencies and organizations. It was co-organized by the Anti-monopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) and the Advocacy Working Group (AWG) co-chairs, i.e. Norwegian Competition Authority (NCA), Hong Kong Competition Commission (HKCC) and Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS). AMCU Chairman Yuriy Terentiev and HKCC Senior Executive Director Rasul Butt delivered the opening remarks to welcome participants. Representing the co-chairs, Butt gave a brief overview of the work that has been done by the Working Group in 2018-19, including three main work-streams on (1) Advocacy Strategy, (2) Advocacy and Digital Markets and (3) Impact Assessment. With continued, firm support from member agencies and NGAs on those projects, the Working Group has been able to carry out its mission to improve the effectiveness of ICN members in advocating competition principles and to promote the development of a competition culture.
The Workshop began with five competition and advocacy experts sharing their insights on formulating a successful and effective advocacy strategy in the first plenary. It was followed by the second session “Bridging Competition Advocacy and Enforcement” in which speakers talked about how to foster competition culture through advocacy to enhance enforcement impact with cases from their jurisdictions. On the second day, the Workshop continued with the discussion on competition assessment in the policy development process. To conclude the Workshop, recognized experts from the ICN, OECD, the World Bank Group and UNCTAD came together to discuss practical ways for the competition agencies to assist and cooperate with each other in the last plenary “Advocating International Best Practices”.
The Workshop also consisted of nine break-out sessions, enabling lively discussions following up on various aspects of the matters that were more broadly debated in the plenaries, such as advocacy in the digital era, traditional and social media as well as inter-agency collaboration. In addition, these more focused discussions also covered topics that are highly relevant to the current advocacy challenges facing the competition authorities in Ukraine and the region, including issues in relation to natural monopoly, adjacent market, state-owned enterprises and privatization process.