By Richard Powers & Leah McCoy (United States Department of Justice)1   When the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s (“Division”) leniency program was first adopted over twenty-five years ago, the program had its skeptics.  In providing immunity from prosecution for the first company to self-report criminal cartel conduct, the leniency program was innovative, […]

By Ann O’Brien (BakerHostetler)1   In July, the International Competition Network (“ICN”) Cartel Working Group (“CWG”) issued Guidance on Enhancing Cross-Border Leniency Cooperation (the Guidance).2 The Guidance was unveiled with a good amount of fanfare in the cartel world, including a U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) press release applauding the Guidance and the DOJ Antitrust […]

By Vinicius Marques de Carvalho (VMCA Advogados)1   Introduction The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about many reflections regarding public policies on several different levels. As with any exercise on understanding the present to predict future outcomes, these reflections are multiple and influenced by a specific view about how institutions and […]

By Maria Coppola, Elizabeth Kraus, Cynthia Lagdameo, Paul O’Brien & Randolph Tritell (Federal Trade Commission)1   Nearly twenty years after its founding, the International Competition Network (“ICN”) is an active, vibrant network of competition law enforcers, practitioners, and academics from around the world. Twenty years ago, the idea of the ICN as a primary driver […]

By Alexander Baker (Fingleton)1 Are laws and competition authorities getting the balance right in merger control? Is there too much overenforcement (false positives) or too much underenforcement (false negatives)? These were questions posed to delegates from over 40 countries at the recent ICN Merger Workshop held in Melbourne, Australia and hosted by the Australian Competition […]

By Valeria Losco (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer)1 On October 22, the ICN Unilateral Conduct Working Group hosted the first in a series of webinars, “Dominance Assessment in Two-Sided Platforms.” The program, moderated by the Competition Commission South Africa’s Chief Economist James Hodge, featured prominent antitrust experts that shared their experience with (i) market definition; (ii) dominance […]

By Joseph R. Neely (United States Federal Trade Commission)1 To say that much has been written about digital mergers would be an understatement.2 Around the world, competition enforcers are evaluating how their competition laws can be best utilized—or improved—to address some of the analytical challenges involved in digital markets. Last month, the ICN’s Merger Working […]

By Noemy Melo Colin (CADE)1 From October 7-10, 2019, the Brazilian Competition Authority – CADE – hosted the 16th ICN Cartel Workshop. Themed “cartels in the age of data-driven economy,” the workshop took place in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, and gathered more than 200 competition officials, lawyers, economists, and academics from 46 different countries and […]