Dear ICN community,

Welcome to the ICN’s new quarterly update.

At least year’s annual conference, David Lewis said, “One of the real eye-openers in taking over the chair of the ICN was the realization that the ICN is engaged in an extraordinary amount of activity.” I confess to a similar experience, and in response have suggested we create an electronic mailing list to provide quarterly updates about the network’s current projects to keep us all better informed. Communication with members and non-governmental advisors (NGAs) about the ICN’s activity should come more frequently than once a year at the annual conference.

In this message I provide brief updates of activity, but I encourage you also to visit the ICN’s new blog, at www.icnblog.org. If you have trouble viewing this page or for previous postings, please see: http://internationalcompetitionnetwork.org/index.php/en/newsroom.

Working Group Activity

Our five substantive working groups are making great progress in meeting their goals for the 2010 annual conference. In the Advocacy Working Group, 13 agencies together with NGAs from the private bar, a consumer organization, economic consultancies, and academia are preparing a handbook for conducting market studies. Another team is creating an “information store” of market studies from around the globe that will be available on the ICN’s website this spring. There is also a group of members and NGAs holding experience sharing calls, facilitating dialogue and exchange of best practice on a number of areas related to advocacy. To date, we have had one call on relationships with the private bar and another on advocacy to promote more joint work between the OECD’s Competition Committee and the ICN.

Our newest working group, Agency Effectiveness, is preparing two chapters of an operational handbook, covering strategy and planning and effective project delivery. Similarly, the Cartel Working Group continues to revise its Anti-cartel Enforcement Manual, with work on digital evidence gathering and case initiation. In addition, the Egyptian competition authority graciously hosted the annual cartel workshop last month in Cairo. More than 200 people from 60 jurisdictions participated. The Cartel Working Group also hosts experience sharing calls for members to discuss issues related to adopting criminal sanctions for hard-core cartel conduct. The topic for the first call was issues to consider when drafting legislation with criminal sanctions.

The Merger Working Group is currently drafting two Recommended Practices to present for adoption in Istanbul, on “failing firm defence” and “market definition”. Forty members and 100 NGAs participate in the Unilateral Conduct Working Group, which is now surveying how ICN members address refusal to deal. Last week, the Unilateral Conduct Working Group led the first ever ICN webinar. In the spirit of encouraging informed divergence, the webinar’s topic was a debate about excessive pricing.

Vice Chair Activity

The ICN’s three vice chairs are devoting an unprecedented amount of time and energy to developing mechanisms that bring together in a holistic fashion the excellent work being done at the working group level, facilitating access to and use of ICN work product. Vice Chair for Advocacy and Implementation, JFTC’s Kazuhiko Takeshima, is managing the Advocacy and Implementation Network Support Program (AINSUP), an assistance program for ICN members to seek advice related to ICN recommendations and other work product. Vice Chair for International Coordination, Mexico’s Eduardo Perez Motta, has identified potential joint projects between the ICN and UNCTAD and the World Bank. The US FTC’s Bill Kovacic, ICN’s Vice Chair for Outreach, has launched the ICN’s blog and bulletin board referenced above, and continues work identifying ways to make the ICN more effective.

NGA Liaison

ICN leadership is committed to broadening and deepening NGA participation. Earlier this year I asked Bruno Lasserre, President of France’s Autorité de la Concurrence, to oversee NGA activity by becoming the ICN’s first NGA Liaison. He has created an NGA-dedicated webpage on the ICN’s website, available at: http://www.internationalcompetitionnetwork.org/media/library/NGAs_role.pdf. Going forward, he will manage this quarterly mailing, among other important projects.

Horizontal Coordinator

Another position we developed is the horizontal coordinator. The ACCC’s Brian Cassidy, working with the Secretariat, promotes collaboration and coordination across working groups by, inter alia, maintaining an ICN calendar of calls and other events. Brian will be responsible for working with the chairs of the working group to promote complementarities in their work plans.

Steering Group’s Initiative: Response to the Economic Downturn

Across the globe, the economic downturn has put pressure on competition agencies to step up efforts as advocates for effective competition policy in the face of scepticism about the benefits of a market economy and calls for economic protectionism. To support ICN members’ domestic advocacy efforts, the Steering Group developed a series of messages about the value and benefits of competition policy to economic stability and growth, both in the design of recovery measures and for the long term well being of our economies. These messages provide ICN members with support for domestic advocacy efforts, and help create a consistent voice internationally.

Chair’s Initiative: Long Term Vision

Last, but certainly not least, as I highlighted in Zurich, we are dedicating a significant portion of this ICN year planning for ICN’s next decade. Working Groups, as the backbone of the ICN, are beginning this inquiry, with each working group preparing long term vision papers for presentation to wider ICN membership and NGAs in Istanbul.

I hope these brief updates are useful.

The ICN, as a virtual network, relies on the goodwill of its members and advisors to devote time and energy to our activities. I am most grateful to all of you working on these projects, and encourage those of you who are not closely involved in the work to consider participating more actively in the lead up to the annual conference, which will be held April 27-29, 2010 in Istanbul.

In the future, if you prefer not to receive these updates, please send an email to stephanie.yon@autoritedelaconcurrence.fr with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

Best regards,

John Fingleton
Chair, ICN Steering Group