Quality, Spirit and Professionalism

International Competition Network discusses digital economy and announces full self-evaluation of ICN

The International Competition Network (ICN) held its 19^th annual conference on September 14-17, 2020. The conference was the ICN’s first virtual conference. Originally planned as an in-person conference in Los Angeles in May, the conference transitioned to a virtual format as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ICN is the most important network of competition authorities worldwide. It comprises 140 competition agencies from 129 jurisdictions. Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt, has been the ICN Steering Group Chair since September 2013.

Andreas Mundt, ICN Chair and President of the Bundeskartellamt: “Over 2500 delegates from around the world participated in the conference. I want to thank our host agencies FTC and DOJ, the ICN working group co-chairs and everyone involved.”

Andreas Mundt opened the conference and spoke on a panel on remedies in unilateral conduct cases involving digital markets. Other sessions dealt with competition enforcement in the digital economy, big data and cartelization, competition advocacy in the digital age, merger investigations in the digital sector, and competition agencies’ strategies to address the challenges of the digital economy. Additional sessions dedicated to younger agencies, ICN Non-Governmental Advisors and economists took place on conference day four.

The ICN also announced plans for a full self-evaluation of the network, the “Third Decade Review”. Andreas Mundt: “ICN will turn 20 next year and we will look at tools, structure and topics to shape the ICN for its third decade. The ICN is well equipped to keep on improving and developing, maybe the most important skill these days. Quality, spirit and professionalism will enable the ICN to tackle the issues that matter for its members.”

A recording of the conference will be available on the ICN conference webpage after the close of the conference. Supplemental annual conference programming will be held throughout the fall.

ICN work products, the ICN working group work plans and additional information on future events are available on the ICN website.

Now presenting the ICN’s 2020-2023 future work plans. Also available on individual working group webpages.

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.

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.