{"id":7710,"date":"2022-05-13T19:21:46","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T17:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/?p=7710"},"modified":"2022-05-13T20:01:30","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T18:01:30","slug":"conference-debriefing-30-ikk-icn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/blog\/2022\/05\/13\/conference-debriefing-30-ikk-icn\/","title":{"rendered":"Conference Debriefing (30): IKK & ICN"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the World Festival of Competition Law: Representatives of competition agencies came together in Berlin to celebrate two consecutive conferences: The traditional Bundeskartellamt\u2019s International Cartel Conference (IKK) and the Annual Meeting of the International Competition Network (ICN). Most everyone was there, and so was Rupprecht Podszun<\/strong> who gives his Conference Debriefing here.<\/em><\/p>\n

Name of Event:<\/strong> XXI. Internationale Kartellkonferenz & 21st ICN Annual Conference<\/p>\n

Topic:<\/strong> \u201cWe are family!\u201d \u2013 Okay, that was not the official topic, but it had a bit of that first family reunion after years of online-only.<\/p>\n

Place & Time:<\/strong> 4-6 May 2022, Berlin, Steigenberger hotel, just around the corner of the Chancellor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Host:<\/strong> Andreas Mundt, the Bundeskartellamt\u2019s President, is also Chairman of the International Competition Network (ICN), so he ran the show (together with Barbara Schulze, Olaf Wrede and many others from his staff).<\/p>\n

Audience:<\/u><\/strong> On entering Nolle<\/em>, that fuddy-duddy<\/span> quaint Berlin restaurant where you meet the night before it all starts (see picture), I bumped into Cristina Caffarra and Andrea Coscelli, passed our academic icon Eleanor Fox, saw Konrad Ost cornered by a group of antitrust lawyers such as Thorsten M\u00e4ger, Marc Besen and Alexander Birnstiel, met my colleagues Jens-Uwe Franck, Florian Bien and Gerhard Wagner and saw top judges like Ulrike Picker, Anne-Christin Frister or Patricia Rombach. With ICN taking over from IKK, the audience becomes more international and more agency-driven: ICN had an unimaginable number of top enforcers from all over the world \u2013 at dinner on Thursday (at a spectacular location), I came to sit next to Bundeskartellamt\u2019s merger eminence Fabian Pape, but we were squeezed in between top ranking officials from Singapore, Saudi-Arabia, South-Africa, Portugal and Malaysia. And Graciella Miralles, of course, the ever cheerful World Bank competition expert.<\/p>\n

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The Number 1 & 2 of Bundeskartellamt, Andreas Mundt (2nd from left) and Konrad Ost (left), with some of their guests at famous Nolle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, are we back at pre-Covid conference business again with damp handshakes and last man standing at the bar-contest?<\/h2>\n

According to my faint knowledge of such matters, Berlin\u2019s party crowd has a \u201cDon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d-policy, so even if I knew about what people did late at the bar… What I can disclose is that everyone\u2019s wearing tie again. Well, everyone but Robert Habeck and Andr\u00e9 Schw\u00e4mmlein, but then as a green Vice-Chancellor (Habeck) and as a start-up-entrepreneur-turned-market leader (Schw\u00e4mmlein) you may have to follow your own dress-codes. J\u00f6rg Nothdurft, the chief litigator of Bundeskartellamt, was the only one who stubbornly wore an FFP2-mask all the time \u2013 he had to plead the Facebook<\/em> case before the European Court of Justice\u2019s Grand Chamber a couple of days later and wanted to keep fit for this once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Schw\u00e4mmlein \u2013 is he the German Elon Musk?<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s not assume the worst! We don\u2019t like Musk anymore, remember, ever since he threatens to take our beloved Twitter-toy and break it. Schw\u00e4mmlein had the CEO slot at IKK, telling the story how he once read the German government\u2019s coalition treaty, learned that the long-distance bus market would be deregulated and then decided to enter the bus-biz with Flix, a bus company driven by digital means. I spotted Armin Jungbluth, formerly in charge of competition policy in the German government, nodding: He vividly remembered that great tale of deregulation. Flix\u2019s market share in long-distance bus travelling is now close to monopoly in Germany after a fierce battle with competitors. And Flix bought Greyhound, you know, that bus line Billy Joel took when he was in a New York state of mind<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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Andr\u00e9 Schw\u00e4mmlein (Flix).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And Flix runs trains, too, right?<\/h2>\n

They try to, and they are the maverick in that business with negligible market shares. According to the Flix CEO, German state-owned incumbent Deutsche Bahn spent millions of taxpayer money to keep Flix out of business. \u201cWhy did we prevail? \u2013 Because we placed consumer interest first.\u201d Hea-, hea-, heart-warming! Schw\u00e4mmlein had very clear messages: First \u2013 cut down red tape and reform the outdated regulatory frameworks. Second: If you have to deal with a state-owned enterprise like Deutsche Bahn, it is good to have a supranational body like the EU Commission. Third: Build the digital and physical infrastructure so as to make innovation happen.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure he had a funny anecdote on German bureaucracy!<\/h2>\n

Not so funny this time: It takes months to get the approval of all districts, the Landkreise,<\/em> in Germany for running long distance bus lines, although it is clear that you are entitled to anyway. But what is more: It takes two years, he said, to get a licence in Germany to take people directly from Kyiv to Berlin and vice versa. Flix runs this line with a mandatory stop in Poland now. And coaches are full in both directions, by the way.<\/p>\n

Not good, not good that it takes so long. So, Ukraine was also on the agenda?<\/h2>\n

In the last panel on Thursday afternoon, Olha Pishchanska took the floor. Johannes Bernabee of the Philippines Competition Commission introduced her with very warm words. Pishchanska is the Chairwoman of the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine. It was certainly the most emotional moment of the conference.<\/p>\n

She is, well, working like normal? She came to Berlin?<\/h2>\n

Oh, yes! They seem to carry on business. Ukraine is an active member of the antitrust community, currently they have a twinning project running with Lithuania, Germany and Romania. She read out a speech full of determination, hope and courage, emphasizing the role of competition in the post-war-reconstruction of Ukraine after the victory.<\/p>\n

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Olha Pishchanska from the Ukrainian Anti-Monopoly Commission with \u0160ar\u016bnas Keserauskas (Chairman, Lithuanian Competition Council) and Konrad Ost (Vice President, Bundeskartellamt).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Phew. We never quite expected to deal with post-war economies in competition law\u2026<\/h2>\n

That\u2019s not true: The whole introduction of EU competition law was a post-war endeavour, and I also may remind you of my blog post recently<\/a> on re-reading the ordoliberals\u2026 Anyway, would be of interest to see how the states in former Yugoslavia dealt with reconstruction tasks and whether competition played a role.<\/p>\n

But the war was not the big topic.<\/h2>\n

Indeed. Two and a half other issues dominated the conferences. The number one topic was: How can we get nastier<\/span> tougher, smarter, more effective in enforcement?<\/p>\n

Ugh?! That\u2019s what you were talking about at this conference?<\/h2>\n

This is where enforcers meet! People from the agencies outnumber all other stakeholders by far so, yes, they tell each other how to make the cartel crackdown more effective, how to analyse data in merger control or how to lobby for competition vis-\u00e0-vis governments.<\/p>\n

Oh dear, they stir up each other how to get on the nerves of companies?<\/h2>\n

I would not go that far, but ICN is for agency learning, yes. You can be an outsider if you are that one representative of the antitrust bar who is allowed to be on the panel. Take Ingo Brinker for example: He sat on the outer wing of a panel with agency leaders Andrea Coscelli, Jonathan Kanter, Beno\u00eet Coeur\u00e9 & Olivier Guersent. These four agency leaders had economists Cristina Caffarra and Fiona Scott Morton with them, both of them are not exactly known as advocates for restraint in enforcement. So, it was Brinker (who is the head of the German Studienvereinigung<\/em>) who once in a while had to use words like \u201cpredictability\u201d or \u201cseparation of powers\u201d. Rights of defence is not the pet subject of enforcers.<\/p>\n

Guess so. I am so sorry, but please help me with this name: Beno\u00eet Coeur\u00e9 is\u2026<\/h2>\n

\u2026the new Pr\u00e9sident of the French Autorit\u00e9 de la Concurrence. When he took stage, I saw him being googled on basically all smartphones around me. What we know so far: He is an economist. He is an eloquent speaker. He held posts in the French Finance Ministry, the European Central Bank and the Bank for International Settlements. And that means: He has a soft spot for financial regulation \u2013 something he has in common with EU Director General Olivier Guersent and the German State Secretary Sven Giegold. The three of them emphasized this a couple of times, so financial regulation could lead the way for competition policy reforms\u2026<\/p>\n

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Three economists: Benoit Coeur\u00e9 with Cristina Caffarra (CRA) and Fiona Scott Morton (Yale).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not sure I like that. What became of Isabelle De Silva, by the way?<\/h2>\n

She now presides the 6th<\/sup> chamber of the Conseil d\u2019Etat in France, which means she adjudicates on administrative cases in environmental matters. She was still referenced as a heroine of the second big topic.<\/p>\n

Which must be the fight against Big Tech.<\/h2>\n

Absolutely. In a breakout session, we heard from Gr\u00e9goire Comet Da\u00e2ge how the French use interim measures (a tool they use more frequently than others) to push Google into negotiations with press publishers, and Katharina Voss reported an interim measure in a case from Sweden concerning housing statistics. So, the digital cases were prominent. The whole conference started with Sven Giegold\u2019s opening address. Giegold oversees Germany\u2019s competition policy and is the architect of the Agenda2025 that is currently discussed in this blog<\/a>. His speech (that you can read here)<\/a> was a straight-forward attack on what he called \u201cantitrust redux\u201d: Competition policy with a too narrow focus on consumer welfare and a track record of under-enforcement. In other times, the US delegation would probably have left the room, but this went down well with the Biden admin representatives like Jonathan Kanter. Expect the German government to advocate for structural separation, tougher merger control and the \u201cNew competition tool\u201d on an EU level. It was a strong start for the conference, not least since Giegold proved to be a funny guy.<\/p>\n

On Big Tech, Mundt disclosed that Meta is now an addressee of section 19a of the German law!<\/h2>\n

And what is more: Menlo Park does not appeal that decision. It means that the Bundeskartellamt can now go after Facebook\u2019s activities with the specific provisions of section 19a (2)<\/a>. That is a bit like the Digital Markets Act light<\/em>. Other than with the DMA companies can still bring an efficiency defence under section 19a and the obligations need to be activated \u2013 in the DMA there is no efficiency defence and obligations are supposed to be self-executing (even though many do not believe this<\/a>\u2026). It will now be a race of enforcers: The Germans will try to put their 19a-cases in their shop window before the DMA finally takes real effect in 2024.<\/p>\n

Margrethe Vestager probably does not give a LIKE for that.<\/h2>\n

Well, it\u2019s fair to say that the EU Commission believes in the digital single market. Some people probably believe that this requires a thick uniform rulebook written in Brussels. Oh, re EU rulebook: Have you noticed the new Block Exemption Regulation on Vertical Restraints, in force as of 1 June 2022? The kid has a name now, it will be Regulation (EU) 2022\/720<\/a> and it holds some rules for the platform economy. Executive Vice-President Vestager was the notable absent at this conference, she only gave an online-performance: Her speech came from a hallway somewhere in Strasbourg where people were passing by, and in my ears this speech<\/a> had even less substance than the average statement for such an occasion. But it happened at 9 am in the morning; maybe that was too early for her – or for me.<\/p>\n