Competition Law Forum: Research
The Competition Law Forum produces cutting-edge applied research, analysis and recommendations on the content, methodologies, regulation and implementation of competition policy at all levels of governance - national, European and global. It produces appropriate publications to this end. The objective of the Forum's research is to achieve widespread understanding among key actors of the appropriate goals of competition policy and of the most effective means to their achievement.
The Forum's current research is set out below. Research Papers may be accessed by CLF Members and Institute Members by clicking here. The CLF's current research relates to the following topics/projects:
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Research on Market Investigations and Sector Inquiries
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Consumer Detriment Project
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Price Discrimination Project for the American Bar Association
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The DG Sanco-Consumers International Competition Project
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The CLF Working Group on Private Actions
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The CLF Review Group on Article 82
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BT Project on the WTO Reference Paper on Telecommunications
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International Competition Cooperation
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Modernisation
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Merger Review in Europe
The European Competition Journal
Recent cases and reforms have shown that European competition law and policy is increasingly intertwined with economic analysis and reasoning, usually at a reasonably sophisticated level. It is now time for a journal which provides a deep consideration of European competition policy from both the legal and the economic perspectives. To this aim the Director of the CLF, Dr Philip Marsden, and Simon Bishop, partner at RBB Economics, have created the European Competition Journal, a biannual academic publication that will be available for sale each spring and autumn. To access the journal online please click here.
Consumer Detriment Project
The maximisation of consumer welfare is consistently presented as the paramount objective of competition law. However, to what extent is this objective pursued in practice by the competition authorities? Dr Philip Marsden and Peter Whelan's detailed study of EC and UK competition legislation, soft law and cases aims to answer this question and to offer timely observations and suggest important areas for further study. Their paper, entitled '"Consumer Detriment" and its Application in EC and UK Competition Law', is available in the October 2006 edition of the European Competition Law Review. To access this article, please click here. A related article, 'Consumer Interest in Competition Law Cases', was written by Michael Hutchings OBE and Peter Whelan and was published in the September 2006 edition of the Consumer Policy Review. To access this article, please click here. The most recent publication related to this project will be published as a chapter in Own Labels, Branded Goods and Competition Policy: The Changing Landscape of Retail Competition, Ezrachi (ed), OUP, forthcoming; it was written by Dr Philip Marsden and Peter Whelan.
Research on Market Investigations and Sector Inquiries
Both the European Commission and the UK authorities have legislative powers to examine a market that they feel isn't working properly in order to investigate if there are any competition and/or other problems that require remedying; the concepts of 'market investigation' and 'sector inquiry' are used in the UK and EC contexts respectively. The CLF has conducted research into both of these regimes. A recent CLF article entitled 'When Markets Fail: The Use of Market Investigations and Sector Inquiries in Competition Law' was published in two parts by the Competition Law Insight in early 2007. This article was written by Dr Philip Marsden and Peter Whelan. See view this article click here: Part I and Part II.
Price Discrimination Project for the ABA
In February 2006 Peter Whelan and Dr Philip Marsden co-authored a paper on EC and UK price discrimination for the American Bar Association's Antitrust Teleseminar Series. The paper, entitled 'The Concept of Price Discrimination under EC and UK Law', comprises both the EC's and the UK's contribution to the ABA's Review of International Perspectives on Price Discrimination. It was presented to the ABA by Dr Philip Marsden on 27 February 2006. To access this paper, please click here.
The DG Sanco - Consumers International Project
The primary goal of this project was to increase the capacity and expertise of 14 different EU consumer organisations to represent the consumer cause in the most effective way in the development of competitive markets and competition policy. This was achieved by undertaking market surveillance into competition within the retail distribution sector. The CLF's role in this project involved the following obligations:
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To provide technical assistnace and advice to Consumers International;
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To provide training in competition law to the 14 partner organisations at regional meetings;
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To host three regional workshops; and
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To undertake a survey and legal analysis of national and regional competition law, consumer protection, and recent investigations, cases and guidelines.
After training the partner organisations in competition law, as well as hosting regional workshops, the CLF completed its report on the results of the survey of 14 different national competition law regimes in March 2007; it was presented at the joint meeting of EESC/INT, ECCG/CWG and ECN/CC in Brussels in September 2007. The authors of the report were Dr Philip Marsden, Peter Schepens and Peter Whelan. For more detailed information on this project please click here.
The CLF Working Group on Private Actions
Private enforcement of competition law is currently being encouraged within the EU by the European Commission and other competition authorities. In December 2005 the Commission published a Green Paper on Damages Actions for Breach of the EC Antitrust Rules; it wished to receive replies to this document before 21 April 2006. In January 2006 the CLF set up a working group, chaired by Richard Eccles of Bird & Bird, London, to respond to the issues highlighted in the Green Paper. Peter Whelan of the CLF was the group's rapporteur. This working group completed its work in mid-April and submitted its response to the Green Paper by the 21 April deadline. To access this submission, please click here.
The CLF Review Group on Article 82
In the summer of 2004, the CLF formed an 'Article 82 Review Group' to meet regularly with industry experts, practioners, economists and competition officials to review the operation of Article 82 EC and the potential for its reform. This group met on a regular basis throughout both 2005 and early 2006 and has produced three papers commenting on the reforms in this area, including a paper co-authored with the German Bundeskartellamt. Two of these papers were published in the European Competition Journal in 2006. To access these papers please click here.
BT Project on the WTO Reference Paper on Telecommunications
This project analysed the regulatory framework for telecommunications in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia in order to assess whether these jurisdictions have fulfilled their obligations under the WTO Reference Paper on Telecommunications.
International Competition Cooperation Project
Competition enforcement cooperation agreements have been, and continue to be, concluded between a multitude of jurisdictions in order to ensure that the benefits of free trade are not eliminated by private anticompetitive practices. Dr Philip Marsden and Peter Whelan of the CLF researched the effectiveness of bilateral agreements in their pursuit of this objective. The International Competition Cooperation Project involved study of inter alia the workings of bilateral trade and competition cooperation agreements in the following jurisdictions: Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the EU. To access the three papers that resulted from their research, please click here. These papers will be published by Edward Elgar later this year.
Modernisation
Regulation 1/2003 replaced Regulation 17 in May 2004. The procedural implications of the decentralisation of EC competition law enforcement will determine the failure or success of the reform. Analysis of the procedural changes and the problems of multiple enforcement throughout the Union is needed to manage the first phase of the implementation of the new legislation. The CLF has conducted research in this area.
Merger Review in Europe
The European Commission's proposals to change the law on merger review in Europe were of the utmost importance. The CLF studied the implications of the proposed Horizontal Merger Guidelines on the issues of dominance in oligopolistic markets; the efficiencies 'defence' and other 'defences' (e.g. buyer power and ease of entry) as well as procedural problems raised by the new European Community Merger Regulation.
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