Bundeskartellamt invites to 4th Annual Conference of International Competition
Network (ICN) and to 12th International Conference on Competition in Bonn

From 6 to 8 June 2005 the Bundeskartellamt will be holding the 4th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN) in the former Plenary Hall of the German Bundestag in Bonn. This event will begin with the Bundeskartellamt’s 12th International Conference on Competition (IKK) which will be held in the morning of 6 June 2005.

In view of globalisation and the opportunities it has created for international cooperation between companies but also the ensuing danger of the formation of extensive cartels or the abuse of market power, it has proved absolutely necessary that competition authorities intensify cooperation worldwide and that convergence is increased between the different cartel laws and their application.

The International Competition Network (ICN), established in October 2001, is the answer to this development. The respective competition authorities of the countries make up the membership of the ICN, which now numbers 89 authorities from 79 countries. Since September 2004 the ICN has been chaired by the President of the Bundeskartellamt, Dr Ulf Böge. The crystallization point for the ICN’s work is its annual conference, in 2002 in Italy, in 2003 in Mexico and in 2004 in Korea. This year the Bundeskartellamt expects around 300 participants from over 70 countries. The Bonn Conference will be the ICN’s largest event yet and so a genuinely global competition conference. The President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Prof Dr Axel Weber, will open the conference.
The ICN is not an institutionalized organisation with a permanent secretariat and its own staff. Instead its members organize its work themselves in working groups, thus maintaining high flexibility. The four ICN working groups consist of representatives of competition authorities, international organisations, lawyers and academics. They formulate reports, handbooks and best practices on merger control, cartel prosecution, antitrust enforcement in regulated sectors and the improved implementation of competition policy.

The working groups will present their results at this year’s Annual Conference in Bonn:

• The Mergers Working Group has among others formulated best practices on remedies and the powers of a competition authority in merger control proceedings. In addition a standard form has been developed which allows companies to dispense with confidentiality in the multiple notification of a merger, which will significantly accelerate the proceedings in the interest of the companies. In Bonn a handbook on investigative techniques in merger control will also be presented, which has been written by practitioners from competition authorities and the legal profession.
• The Cartels Working Group will among others present comparative studies on the themes “effective sanctions” and “effective institutions” in cartel prosecution. It will also present a handbook on how to conduct investigations in cartel proceedings, also written by practitioners for practitioners.
• The Antitrust Enforcement in Regulated Sectors Working Group will inter alia submit a report on interrelations between antitrust and regulatory authorities in the banking sector.
• The Competition Policy Implementation Working Group will submit an empirical examination of the methods and effects of various forms of technical assistance in competition policy. To date this is the only study of this type.

At the Bonn conference the young competition authorities will for the first time hold their own panel discussion. The conference will thus send out a signal for the crucial participation of emerging economies and developing countries in the work of the ICN.
The 4th Annual ICN Conference will be preceded by the Bundeskartellamt’s biennial International Conference on Competition to be held on the morning of 6 June 2005. The EU Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes, and the Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate, Kurt Beck, will give introductory speeches on the theme “The Competition Principle as a Guideline for Legislation and State Action – The Responsibility of Politics and the Role of Competition Authorities”. Participants in the following panel discussion moderated by Prof Dr Wolfgang Bernhardt, Chairman of the Board of Directors of FAZ GmbH, will include the Chairman of the Monopolies Commission, Prof Dr Jürgen Basedow, the Head of the Antitrust Division in the US Department of Justice, R. Hewitt Pate, the Chairman of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom AG, Kai-Uwe Ricke, the Chairman of the industrial trade union IG Bergbau/Chemie/Energie, Hubertus Schmoldt, and the President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Jürgen R. Thumann.

The full conference programme is available at www.bundeskartellamt.de; information on ICN can be found at the extensive website www.internationalcompetitionnetwork.org.