Competition Law and Merger Regulation

International Symposium

February 2, 2011
Competition Policy Research Center

The Competition Policy Research Center of Japan Fair Trade Commission (CPRC/JFTC) will hold an International Symposium in close collaboration with the Graduate School of Law at Kyoto University (Gakujyutsu Sousei, Kakenhi 19GS0103) and Nihon Keizai Shimbun on March 4.
The geographical boundary of business activities became blur owing to economic globalization and so did the industrial boundary,owing to innovation and the spread of digital technology and information networks. In this environment, reorganization of firm boundaries through mergers, acquisitions, selloffs, and alliances is said to have become an acute strategic need to many firms in every country and in every industry. This trend inevitably has forced competition policy authorities to make difficult and delicate judgment for merger regulation.
For instance, how much should efficiency effects be taken into account? Most competition policy authorities consider efficiency effects only when they are large enough to offset probable anticompetitive effects and are passed through to consumers;however, to evaluate these effects is extremely difficult. Or how much and how should merger regulation be harmonized internationally? Since multinational firms often need to report to competition policy authorities of a number of countries, costing them millions of dollars and a long delay, some sort of internal harmonization seems doubtlessly in need. Yet we still do not know how much harmonization is possible or desirable, because circumstances can vary across countries. Neither do we know how much considerations should be given to the coordinated effects of mergers in addition to the unilateral effects, because it is extremely difficult to predict the extent that a merger might cause such effects.
With these and other questions, merger regulation has become more complicated and difficult, making an exchange of views much in need. In Part I of this Symposium, we will present with great pleasure two prominent keynote speakers: Professors Shelanski and Neven who, besides being prolific academics, are currently active as policy advisors in the US and EU competition authorities, respectively. In Part II, Professor Odagiri, the director of CPRC, will present some of the results from an on-going CPRC research project aiming to evaluate the post-merger performance of major firms in the last decade. In Part III, we will have a panel discussion among the speakers and two commentators.
Through these presentations and discussions, we hope to be able to deepen our understanding toward a better merger regulation.

1 Registration

　Please send the registration form below to the Secretariat of CPRC/JFTC no later than February 24, 2011.

　Since the symposium has been registered to capacity, the registration is closed.
*We regret to inform that Professor Howard Shelanski(US Federal Trade Commission; Professor, Georgetow University Law Center), suddenly became unable to participate in the symposium because an extremely urgent matter had arisen. For this reason, Professor Kawahama,(Graduate School of Law,Kyoto University),will have a presentation, and some programs have been changed (Please note that there could be further changes in schedule.).(3/2)

2 Date and Vennue

3 Agenda

Opening Session

Part I: Keynote Speeches

Break 15:30-5:50
Part II: Panel Discussion

Moderator:
Professor Yosuke Okada (Chief Researcher, CPRC/JFTC; Professor Hitotsubashi University)

Closing