An impressive gathering of experts and specialists considered the “Characteristics of a Good Competition Authority” in the latest of the Competition Commission’s (CC) series of lectures on Wednesday 2 December 2009.
Professor Dr Carl Baudenbacher, the President of the EFTA Court and Chairman of the St. Gallen International Competition Law Forum ICF, was the main speaker, his presentation combining a general examination of issues facing competition authorities across the world with specific lessons learned from the experience of the Swiss Competition Commission. A slide presentation of his speech is available
below:
Slide presentation (pdf, 205kb) |
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The lecture was chaired by CC Chairman, Peter Freeman and also featured a contribution from Professor Stephen Wilks, Professor of Politics at the University of Exeter and until recently a member of the Competition Commission, who pointed out that institutional design and reputation were key in achieving ‘a Good Competition Authority’. |
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| Questions were then taken from the audience, which featured an invited gathering of representatives from many of the CC’s regular contacts in the economic, business and legal sectors, as well as guests from other regulators and the government. Discussion centred round a comparison of the Swiss and UK experiences and how the various constituent elements have shaped the regimes. Learning from other countries’ experience was important, contributors stressed, as also was the need to appreciate the significance of legal and cultural differences. |
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About the speakers
Professor Dr Carl Baudenbacher has been President of the EFTA Court in Luxembourg since 2003, and a Judge since 1995. Since 1987, he has held a chair of Private, Commercial and Economic Law at the University of St Gallen, where he has also been Director of the Institute of European and International Economic Law since 1990. He is the founder and Chairman of the St Gallen International Competition Law Forum ICF and founder and Director of the Postgraduate Program of the University of St Gallen in International and European Business Law Executive MBL-HSG. He is also Co-Chairman of the Vienna Globalisation Symposium (with former Vice Chancellor Dr Erhard Busek).
Between 1989 and 1990 Professor Baudenbacher was a visiting professor at the University of Geneva, and between 1993 and 2005 a visiting professor for International and European Law at the University of Texas School of Law. He was an expert advisor of the Government of the Principality of Liechtenstein during the European Economic Area Agreement negotiations 1990–1994, and a member of the Supreme Court of the Principality of Liechtenstein 1994–1995.
His publication list includes more than 20 books and over 100 articles on European and international law, law of obligations, labour law, law of unfair competition, antitrust law, company law, intellectual property law and comparative law. He received the Walther-Hug Award for one of the best Swiss dissertations in law in 1979, the Cross of Honour for Science and Art (First Class) of the Republic of Austria in 2002, the Carl Fulda Award for Excellence in International Law of the Texas International Law Journal in 2003 and the Small States Prize of the Herbert Batliner Europe-Institute Salzburg in 2004.
Professor Stephen Wilks is Professor of Politics at the University of Exeter. He has written extensively on the politics, administration and enforcement of UK and European competition policy. From 2001–2009 he was a member of the UK Competition Commission and served on a substantial number of merger inquiries including Somerfield/Morrison and BSkyB/ITV. From 2001–2005 he was a member of the Economic and Social Research Council and chaired its Research Strategy Board. From 1999–2002 and again in 2004–05 he was Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at Exeter. His publications include In the Public Interest: Competition Policy and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, MUP, 1999 and, most recently, ‘The Impact of the Recession on Competition Policy: Amending the Economic Constitution?’ International Journal of the Economics of Business, 16(2), November 2009. He is currently working on a book about the political power of business.
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