“From Collusion to Competition” – Eleventh Issue

Sep 03, 2013

CPI Cartel Column edited by Rosa Abrantes-Metz (Global Economics Group/NYU Stern School of Business)

Welcome to the August edition (being released post-Labor Day) of “From Collusion to Competition,” dedicated to India. We have the privilege of having Mr. K K Sharma’s contribution. The author is currently from K K Law Offices and formerly the Director General of the Competition Commission of India. The article, titled “India: Prohibition of anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position,” discusses the Competition Commission of India’s recent new enforcement powers on the prohibition of anticompetitive arrangements, cartels and abuse of dominance cases. These new enforcement powers follow what was the Commission’s exclusive focus on competition advocacy. The article also discusses some recent cases of interest. Great reading, I hope you enjoy it.

In our next issue later in the month, we will be learning about the excellent work the World Bank has been pursuing in terms of anti-cartel efforts.

I would like to close this issue with one final note. As readers of this column may know, I am a big fan of screens for conspiracies and manipulations. These are econometric models designed to flag conspiracies and manipulations through the identification of outliers on prices, bids, volumes, and other variables of interest. A survey of these tools can be found in my CPI Journal article with Professor Bajari. These tools have successfully flagged numerous such anticompetitive practices, and most recently, the LIBOR matters. I am happy to say that screens are gaining popularity around the world for multiple applications, including to competition policy.

As part of this increased interest, on 30 October 2013 the OECD Competition Committee will hold a roundtable discussion on “Ex officio cartel investigations and the use of screens to detect cartels.” The roundtable will feature contributions from the competition authorities of the 34 OECD member states and 15 observer countries as well as contributions by me, Professor Schinkel and Professor Kovacic. This roundtable will address two aspects: i) the relationship between proactive and reactive cartel detection methods and the proper balance between them to achieve an optimal level of cartel deterrence and detection; and ii) the use of screens by competition authorities to detect likely cartels and initiate antitrust investigations. I very much look forward to a lively discussion on this topic!

Happy reading!

Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz