April 7/2008
Japan Fair Trade Commission
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (“JFTC”) will host the International Competition Network (“ICN”) Seventh Annual Conference which will take place in Kyoto from April 14 to April 16.
Nearly 500 people from about 70 jurisdictions including representatives of competition authorities and attorneys at law who specialize in competition laws will attend this conference where lively discussions concerning recent competition policy in various jurisdictions will be anticipated.
1. Overview of the ICN
The ICN is an international network which was established in October 2001 and now consists of more than 100 competition authorities. The purpose of this network is to promote effective and efficient enforcement of competition law worldwide, by enhancing convergence in competition laws and policies through dialogue among member competition authorities. In addition to such authorities,competition experts from international organizations and legal, business, consumer, and academic communities (referred to as Non-Governmental Advisors, “NGA”) also take part in the ICN’s activities.
The Steering Group of the ICN, which consists of representatives of 17 agencies, controls the activities of the ICN as a whole (The Chair of the Steering Group is Ms. Sheridan Scott,Commissioner of the Canadian Competition Bureau). Currently,
Chairman Takeshima takes an active role as one of three Vice-Chairs of the Steering Group, and is involved in ICN’s activities as a core member of the ICN.
The ICN has held an annual conference since 2002 as follows;
- 1st Annual Conference (September 2002, at Naples, Italy)
- 2nd Annual Conference (June 2003, at Merida, Mexico)
- 3rd Annual Conference (April 2004, at Seoul, Korea)
- 4th Annual Conference (June 2005, at Bonn, Germany)
- 5th Annual Conference (May 2006, at Cape Town, South Africa)
- 6th Annual Conference (May 2007, at Moscow, Russia)
2. Contents of the Conference
In this conference, achievements through active discussion in each of the Working Groups (“WGs”) after the Sixth annual conference will be reported. For example, the Cartel WG will publish reports on interviewing techniques, setting fines and settlements. The Merger WG will publish a report named “Setting Notification Thresholds for Merger Review.” The Competition Policy Implementation WG will hold a discussion on the effective and efficient technical assistance activities and also on the measures to improve agency’s effectiveness. The Unilateral Conduct WG will publish “Recommended Practices on Dominance/Substantial Market Power Analysis”, “Recommended Practices on State-Created Monopolies Analysis”, “Report on Predatory Pricing”, and “Report on Single Brandling/Exclusive Dealing.”
In addition to the sessions of these WGs, special programs planned and organized by the host agency have been held in each ICN Annual Conference where issues of host agencies’ concern have been discussed. In the 7th Annual Conference, the
JFTC will organize a panel discussion on “Abuse of Superior Bargaining Position.”
3. Conference Materials
Conference Materials of the Seventh Annual Conference is available at the website; http://www.icn-kyoto.org.
*Every announcement is tentative translation. Please refer to the original text written in Japanese.
