On 18 April, Bruegel hosted a Competition Policy Lab. Competition Policy Labs offer an independent ‘hands-on’ platform for practitioners and academics to meet and discuss hot topics on the competition policy agenda. This time we had Anna Vernet and Luc Peeperkorn for the Commission, and Jacques Crémer from the Toulouse School of Economics. Read more
Bruegel blog
-
The new competition rules for technology transfer agreements
6th May 2013
-
Microsoft fined for non-compliance: a game-changer in antitrust settlements
6th March 2013
The European Commission has crossed into new territory. For the first time, it has sanctioned a company for not abiding by an antitrust settlement: a €561million fine imposed on Microsoft for not keeping to promises made by the company back in 2009. Read more
-
Competition policy trends in South Korea
20th February 2013
Economists often talk about a strong correlation between market development and enforcement of competition policy rules. That is not surprising: competition policy aims at removing obstacles to economic activity, such as barriers to market entry, and it encourages new businesses to challenge incumbent players’ market power. Economic theory suggests that this dynamic brings about an increase in total production. It also suggests that the pressure from competition can trigger a ‘Darwinian selection’, so that firms are forced to be as efficient as possible if they want to survive in the market. This generally means lower production costs, higher quality and lower prices paid by consumers. Conversely, in specific circumstances, excessive competitive pressure may reduce incentives to invest (reducing profit expectations); and therefore, slow down the growth pace. Read more
-
Standard-setting abuse: the case for antitrust control
7th February 2013
The issue: Standards reduce production costs and increase the value of products to consumers. Think about mobile phones: using the same technology allows anybody who owns a mobile phone to call or be called by any other mobile phone owner. The bigger the network, the better for consumers. Read more
-
UPS-TNT: the eternal struggle between harm and efficiencies
30th January 2013
After Olympic/Aegean and Deutsche Börse/NYSE, today’s decision on UPS/TNT is Joaquin Almunia’s third merger prohibition since he became the European Union's competition chief in 2010. Mr Almunia’s predecessor as competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, ended her five-year mandate having barred two mergers. Read more
-
Thunderbolts in the patent storm – EU and US antitrust strikes in the Samsung and Google-Motorola cases
7th January 2013
Standards and standard-setting processes play a key role in fostering European economic development. Standards ensure interoperability of networks and often give rise to significant reductions in transaction and production costs. Read more
-
European antitrust fines: a new wave of deterrence?
7th December 2012
The European Commission just delivered the highest aggregate fine in its history for operating a cartel: €1.47bn (see Euractive). That comes at the end of a long investigation into collusion between TV-tube makers: the first dawn raids by the Commission's Competition Directorate-General took place in 2007. The case has some interesting economic and legal implications. Read more
-
Intellectual Property Rights and Antitrust – is there light at the end of the tunnel? Part 2
30th October 2012
Part 2/2 In my previous blog I wrote about the work of the European Union and United States competition authorities’ chief economists on a set of common principles that could improve standard-setting processes and limit ex-post abuse. To recap, the preliminary list circulated two weeks ago in the US contains four suggested principles (see Fiona Scott Morton’s, DOJ’s chief economist, slides): (1) commitments remain with IP regardless of owner; (2) well – specified procedure to lower cost of dispute resolution; (3) cash option; (4) well-specified process before an injunction/exclusion sought. Below are some first impressions on that list. Principle 1 makes lot of economic sense. Imagine a licensor could commit to FRAND and then sell a FRAND-free patent to another… Read more
-
Intellectual Property Rights and Antitrust – is there light at the end of the tunnel?
29th October 2012
Part 1/2 The chief economists of the European Union and United States competition authorities are prepared to suggest to standard-setting organizations a set of common principles to resolve longstanding intellectual property rights and antitrust issues. If confirmed and endorsed, the principles could minimize anti-competitive risk in standard-setting processes. The background. Standard-setting, or the processes by means of which an industry elects a common production technology to converge on, has lately been one of the main issues at the centre of antitrust practitioners’ attention. In Europe, a number of major alleged abuse cases have been scrutinized in depth by the European Commission (most notably the Rambus and the Qualcomm cases). Other cases, of no less relevance, are currently under investigation: Samsung,… Read more