7th Franco-German Competition Day in Paris

06.12.2016

The 7th Franco-German Competition Day, hosted by the French Autorité de la concurrence and the Bundeskartellamt, was held in Paris on 14 November 2016. The Franco-German Competition Day is a biennial conference which since 2004 has been hosted in turn in France and Germany.

The official part of the event was held on 14 November 2016 at the Maison de l'Europe. The conference's two panel discussions focussed on the following topics: "Cooperations and mergers in the retail trade in France and Germany" and "Antitrust analysis of digital platform markets". Among those attending the conference were members of the competition authorities and economic ministries of both countries, university professors, lawyers, company representatives and representatives of trade associations.

Isabelle de Silva, President of the Autorité de la Concurrence and Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt stated: "The Franco-German Competition Day reflects the intensive cross-border cooperation between our two competition authorities. The discussions at the conference have shown once again that our authorities face very similar problems in their daily work. The dialogue and exchange between us fosters mutual understanding in key competition issues.

In a first panel discussion the conference participants explored issues concerning the trend towards concentration in the retail trade and the antitrust assessment of mergers and cooperations involving leading retailers on procurement and sales markets. Questions relating to market definition according to the type of sale (brick-and-mortar, drive, online, etc.) were also discussed. There is a significant trend towards concentration on a number of retail markets both in France and Germany. The sectors affected have therefore become a key area of focus of the work of both competition authorities. The possibilities of taking public interest into consideration in examining corporate mergers were also discussed.

The second panel discussion dealt with the competitive analysis of digital platform markets. The complexity of business models and economic relationships in the digital markets presents new challenges for competition policy and enforcement practice. The competition authorities have to ensure that the control of abusive practices remains effective and develop existing examination models further to be able to react quickly and efficiently to these challenges. In this connection the panel mainly focussed on indicators of market power in digital markets, such as e.g. network effects, access to data and the innovation potential of the Internet. Here reference was made to the report: "Competition Law and Data" which was recently jointly published by the two authorities. The question as to whether the current theories of harm and previous intervention are convincing was also discussed in great depth.

On the day after the official conference the representatives of the Autorité de la concurrence and the Bundeskartellamt met for an informal exchange about topics of mutual interest and possible ways to intensify the existing cooperation.


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