Competition Commissioners

Doing my research I have collected the names of Commissioners of competition policy. Or actually I have found it on Wikipedia. Just a quick reminder about those who safeguarded prices.

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Second post today

Working on a paper on merger control, I had to dig up paper originals of old proposals for regulation. Until now I found two very useful sites.

One is the European Navigator project. You can search a wide range of documents, including old newspaper articles, etc.

The other one is the ‘Archive of European Integration’ project. here I have found the original proposal, which is not on EUR-LEX.

Here is the original proposal.

ICN treasures

It is really difficult nowadays to write short comments on competition issues; the excellent blogs from all over the world cover a wide range of topics. Nevertheless, I thought it is worth to point out one. The ICN Blog has an ICN Treasure Trove series of entries. Really interesting.

Just to note; from the OECD website. One of my favourites of those I found recently is the mergers study by Whish and Wood (Whish, Richard és Diane Wood: Merger cases in the real world: a study of merger control procedures. (OECD, 1994). See here.

Competition 2010 prize by the Hellenic Competition Commission

Wishing to promote competition culture in Greece, and in the context of its competition advocacy efforts, announces for 2010 a competition for the prize “Competition 2010”. The prize will be awarded to the best scientific article in competition (antitrust) law or economics written by young scholars that are not 31 years old or older on 30 November 2010.

The article must be written in Greek and must pertain to the broad subject of competition law or economics, more specifically either Greek or EU competition law & policy. The article must be unpublished and be based on recent research. It must not be longer than 15,000 words, including footnotes.

The prize amounts to 3,000 euros and the deadline for the submission of the articles is the 30th of November 2010.

More detailed information on the process of submission of the articles can be obtained from www.epant.gr.

WORKSHOP: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE REGULATION OF THE TELECOM INDUSTRY

Program and registration

13:00 – 13:05 – Opening remarks

13:05 – 14:45 – Recent development in the regulatory framework of the telecom sector

• The user’s right in the telecommunication market (Philippe Achilleas, IDEST)
• Competition & devices : Recent developments for the Radio and Telecommunications Terminal Equipment regulatory framework. (Bernard Thery – Legal Director frequencies NRA, France)
• Opening up the (radio)spectrum (Dániel Arányi, Réczicza White & Case)
• Next Generation Network : free competition or regulation of the market? (Frederic Peron, IDEST)

14:45-15:00 Coffee break

15:00 – 16:45 – Recent development in competition policy in the telecoms industry

• The intersection of competition law and policy with telecom regulation (Tibor Szántó, Gazdasági Versenyhivatal, Hungarian Competition Authority)
• Recent EU competition policy trends in the telecom sector  (Péter Vörös, Kajtár Takács Hegymegi- Barakonyi Baker & McKenzie)
• Recent cases in the telecoms sector in competition law in Hungary (Pál Szilágyi, HCLRC)
• Convergence in telecom: an analyse of the cross selling practices (Anais Magloff, Orange/ Sofrecom)

16:45 – 16:50 – Closing remarks

There are only a limited number of places available to the conference. You can register here.

OFFTOPIC: NEW VALUES AFTER THE LISBON TREATY – 7 JULY 2010

One of the hallmarks of European integration has been the construction of a community, latterly a union, based on shared values. These values are common to all Member States and, according to Article 49 EU, aspirant members are obliged to respect them and be committed to promoting them before applying to accede to the Union. Nevertheless these values not only provide criteria against which to measure countries’ readiness to join but also in fact imbue the entire functioning of the Union.

In the post-Lisbon context, this conference — organised by the Pazmany Peter Catholic University, Faculty of Law and Political Science — brings together some of the most respected academics in European law today to expound upon the impact of a value-based approach to their own specialist field. With leading thinkers drawn from a diverse selection
of spheres, participants at the conference are warmly encouraged to discuss and interact in order to contribute to a more complete understanding of the role and importance of values in the EU legal area.

In welcoming speakers and participants to the conference, we trust that the exchange of ideas and fruitful academic intercourse will encourage greater appreciation of the pivotal nature of the values underlying the continuing evolution of EU law and its legal system in the new environment engendered by the Lisbon Treaty.

 

More information here: http://www.eulaw-conferences.com/

MIF

Az Európai Bizottság (EB) nyilvános konzultációt követően elfogadta a Visa Europe kötelezettségvállalását, amelyben a kártyacég az EU-n belül lebonyolított kártyás fizetések után 0,2 százalékban határozza meg a kibocsátói bankközi jutalék (interchange-díj) mértékét. Bővebben a Napi Gazdaság honlapján.

Two weeks to go – Second Annual Conference on Competition Enforcement in the Recently Acceded Member States

We are looking forward to an extremely interesting conference in two weeks in Brno (Czech Republic). We have reported about the conference previously. For more detailed information visit the website of the conference.

Lucie Bányaiová is going to talk about ‘The Concept of Selective Distribution under Draft Regulation on Vertical Restraints and Draft Guidelines’.

Her panel on vertical agreements is chaired by Dr. Tóth Tihamér, the President of the Scientific Council of the Competition Law Research Centre (Hungary), who is also of counsel to White and Case and has been the president of the Competition Council. Other speakers of the panel are: Szakadát, László (Competition Council, Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH)) and Petr, Michal (Head of the Legislative and International Section, Office of Competition and Consumer Protection).

 Lucie Bányaiová is a senior associate in Salans’ Prague office. Ms. Bányaiová received her Master of Laws in 2000, Doctor of Laws in 2001 and Ph.D. degree in 2007 from Charles University School of Law in Prague and a diploma in Legal Studies from Cardiff University Law School in 1997. She also studied political science at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, USA and European law at the European Academy of Law in Florence, Italy. She worked as a short-term intern with the Court of Justice of the European Communities. Before joining the Prague office, she worked as a legislative counsel with the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. She currently works as an external lecturer at the Charles University School of Law in Prague where she leads seminars on conflict of laws. She focuses her practice on corporate law, conflict of laws, EC law and competition law. She is a member of the Czech Chamber of Advocates. She speaks Czech, English and French.

Only one month to go – there are still some places left

After last year’s successful conference in Budapest, this year the Annual Conference on Competition Enforcement in the Recently Acceded Member States will be organised in Brno. The speakers include Rafaj, Petr (Chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition); Schweitzer, Heike (European University Institute); Marsden, Philip (Office of Fair Trading, BIICL); Bányaiová, Lucie (Senior Associate, Salans); Bednářová, Barbora (former Adviser to the First Vice-Chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition of the Czech Republic); Neruda, Robert (Office for the Protection of Competition); Brouček, Milan (Director, Chief Economist Department, Office for the Protection of Competition); Bejcek, Josef (Masarykova univerzita); Csorba, Gergely (Chief economist, Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH));Katsoulacos, Yannis (Athens University of Economics and Business); Kokkoris, Ioannis (Visiting Professor, Bocconi University); Le Berre, Morvan (Wardyński i Wspólnicy sp.k.); Petr, Michal (Head of the Legislative and International Section, Office of Competition and Consumer Protection); Szakadát, László (Competition Council, Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH)), Szilágyi, Pál (Competition Law Research Centre, Hungary); Tóth, Tihamér (Professor at Pazmany Peter Catholic University and White & Case; former Vice President of the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH)).

You can find more information at the website of the conference: www.eccompetitionlaw.eu.

International Antitrust Litigation – Conflict of laws and coordination

On March 26, 2010, Louvain University, University Paris 2 and the Max Planck Institute organize a conference on “International Antitrust Litigation – Conflict of laws and coordination” in Brussels.  It will cover a broad range of issues including rules on jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition of judgments, but also on sharing of evidence, protection of business secrets and interplay between administrative and judicial procedures.

For more information click here.