The OECD Global Forum on Competition brings together every year competition officials from over 110 authorities and organisations worldwide.
In 2016, the Forum opened with a session on competition and human rights followed by discussions on market studies, indenpence of competition authorities and sanctions in antitrust cases.
Competition law enforcement depends on an effective system of human rights: the right to property, the right to contract and rights to due legal process. Policies promoting competition between providers can also be effective in supporting human rights more broadly, for example through providing checks on the power of corporations, as well through helping fight corruption in government. However, economic competition itself is occasionally portrayed as harming human rights along with social values, for example through “social dumping, or environmental damage. Furthermore, some policies intended to safeguard human rights depend on agreements between suppliers - agreements that might be in conflict with competition law (or which might at the least raise the risk or suspicion of being in such conflict). This session brought experts from the competition and human rights policy communities together to understand better each other’s one another’s perspectives and to explore the ways in which any apparent conflicts between their objectives can be resolved.
Market studies provide competition authorities with an in-depth understanding of how sectors or markets work, and are usually conducted whenever there are concerns about the functioning of markets. This tool is often used to identify problematic markets and to recommend areas of improvement. The use of market studies various widely across jurisdictions and is characterised by significant conceptual and procedural differences.
This session discussed the results of a survey by the OECD on market studies, summarising similarities across jurisdictions, significant differences as well as their pros and cons. It tried to identify practices that competition authorities can consider for use in future market studies.
Competition agencies operate in diverse political, legal and institutional contexts, meaning there is no single model that can guarantee their independence. Nevertheless, a set of widely recognised principles can help safeguard agencies from undue influence and strengthen their ability to enforce competition law effectively. This session explored these legal and structural safeguards, while also highlighting how strong enforcement, advocacy and proactive agency initiatives can help reinforce independence regardless of an agency’s formal institutional design.
This session looked at antitrust fines and other sanctions imposed in different jurisdictions. Antitrust fines play a role in deterrence by making anticompetitive conduct less profitable. The amount of fines has dramatically increased in recent years while competition authorities have adopted or revised their legislation or guidelines on fines. However, competition authorities often face several problems such as collecting fines and inability to pay when imposing them. In order to increase deterrence, some argue that higher fines are necessary while others maintain that there is a need to impose other forms of sanctions. This session provided an overview of how competition authorities impose antitrust fines and alternatives in order to achieve deterrence, punishment, compensation and other objectives, addressing the problems that can arise at different stage of imposing antitrust fines.
