Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: EC Competition Commissioner Talks International Cooperation, (Mar 22, 2013)

By Jeffrey May, J.D.

Addressing the International Bar Association’s Ninth Competition Mid-Year Conference in Sydney yesterday, Joaquín Almunia, Vice President of the European Commission responsible for Competition Policy, called for greater cooperation and interoperability among the 100 jurisdictions enforcing competition laws.

In his remarks, entitled “European and Global Perspectives for Competition Policy,” Almunia discussed bilateral and multilateral cooperation efforts among competition agencies and predicted that the “level and scope of global cooperation among competition authorities can only increase in the future.”

“When dealing with large international corporations, competition agencies cannot remain behind national or regional fences,” Almunia said. “We need to pull our forces together.”

He pointed out that the EC is actively cooperating with the main competition agencies around the world, including those in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

The official suggested that competition agencies should direct their efforts “towards a better convergence—or at least a better interoperability—between the different enforcement regimes.” Almunia called for new competition agencies in emerging economic powers to be “fully engaged in these efforts,” including efforts at “the main multilateral forum open to all . . . the International Competition Network.”

“My take-home message here is that we will have to work more closely with each other in the future because—if we don’t—we will simply invite global corporations to play one jurisdiction against the other,” Almunia concluded.

News: Antitrust