Assessment of Global Competition Agency Implementation of ABA Best Practices for Antitrust Procedure

In May 2015, the ABA Section of Antitrust Law (Antitrust Section) issued Best Practices for Antitrust Procedure (Best Practices). The exercise of identifying and cataloguing best practices in a systematic way was motivated by a desire in the Antitrust Section to contribute to and advance a dialogue in the international community promoting norms of procedural fairness in antitrust enforcement. The publication of the Best Practices facilitated the next natural step; namely, the establishment of the Procedural Transparency Task Force (PTTF) in 2016 to study, assess and
report on the extent to which competition authorities around the world are applying principles of due process, procedural transparency and fundamental fairness consistent with the principles presented in the Best Practices. Although the Best Practices do not purport to dictate the specific policies or procedures of any individual Agency, they articulate basic standards for practice that the PTTF believes all competition authorities should apply. As has been noted by the International Competition Network, “[i]nternal safeguards and agency practices that support informed decision making improve the quality of enforcement actions, increase the likelihood of effective outcomes, and strengthen agency credibility.” The PTTF fully endorses this objective.