CARTEL WORKSHOP
October 5-7, 2010
Yokohama, Japan 
The Japan Fair Trade Commission will host the 7th annual ICN cartel workshop. The theme of this year’s workshop is the efficient detection, investigation and punishment of cartel conduct – making the best use of agency resources.
 Contact the workshop host here.
 
MERGER WORKSHOP
November 3-4, 2010
Rome, Italy
 The Italian Competition Authority will host this [...]

 
This week, ICNBlog opens up the ICN’s ‘treasure trove’ of work product to showcase some of the topics presented five years ago at the 2005 ICN Annual Conference, hosted by the German Bundeskartellamt in Bonn, Germany.  Each day, ICNBlog presents different links from the 2005 work product.
 The Cartel Working Group report “Building Blocks for Effective [...]

 
The Chilean competition agency, the FNE, just released a press release announcing that it is instituting proceedings against multinational companies for participating in a cartel for refrigerator compressors. The investigation is the first that was based on a leniency application, after the 2009 amendments that introduced the leniency program.
For more information, see the English language [...]

 
The Competition Authority in Ireland recently evaluated its Cartel Immunity Programme and international developments in the area of leniency and now proposes to make certain changes. In its own words: “These changes attempt to make the Cartel Immunity Programme more self-contained, transparent and attractive to potential applicants, therefore making it a more effective tool in [...]

The 2010 ICN Cartel Workshop website is live, here.

 
On June 16th and 17th, 2010 the Fair Trading Commission of Barbados conducted a training workshop on Detecting, Mitigating and Fighting Bid Rigging in Public Procurement. The workshop brought together senior public sector officials from government departments and agencies. The aim of the workshop was to sensitize all agencies involved on how to detect and [...]

 
For Member Agencies interested in finding out more about what the Working Groups have planned for the coming year, now is an excellent time to get involved as most projects for 2010-11 are in their initial stages.
 
Here is a list of who to contact to join a Working Group or find out more information:
Advocacy Working [...]

 
The Brazilian Ministry of Justice uses effective and timely images in its Play Fair program to raise awareness of bid rigging cartels and the possible penalties. Click here.
Underscoring the place of football in Brazil and the poignancy of using it as a theme for awareness efforts, the Brazilian agencies change their operating hours when Brazil [...]

 
As part of the preparations for the ICN’s tenth anniversary, the ICN Working Groups prepared long term vision statements to outline what they want to accomplish over the next three to five years. These long term plans are available on the ICN’s website as follows:
Advocacy Working Group
Agency Effectiveness Working Group
Cartel Working Group
Merger Working Group
Unilateral Conduct [...]

 
The Swedish Competition Authority has an ongoing project to raise the awareness of public procurement officers about bid-rigging. The initiative includes a checklist on how to recognise bid-rigging, a brochure with examples, and online ads. For more information, click here.
Related to the topic, the Cartel Working Group has an upcoming project on cartel awareness which [...]