The 18th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN), hosted by the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce of Colombia (SIC), will conclude on 17 May 2019. Nearly 500 participants from more than 80 jurisdictions, including representatives and stakeholders such as the business community, legal and economic professionals, international organisations and academics attended this year’s conference which started on Wednesday, 15 May 2019, in Cartagena, Colombia. At the Conference, the new ICN Framework on Competition Agency Procedures was presented in a plenary session and came into effect.

The ICN is the most important network of competition authorities worldwide. It comprises 139 competition agencies from 126 jurisdictions. Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt, has been the ICN Steering Group Chair since September 2013.

In his opening speech Andreas Mundt stated "There is no official overarching theme for the conference, but the clear focus is on two topics, first, on the digital economy, and second, on investigative process. The ICN CAP is a huge step forward in this regard."

The plenary sessions inter alia dealt with the question of how agencies can uncover and punish cartels in the digital era, the assessment of dominance in digital and high tech sectors and agency restructuring to meet the challenges of digitalisation. A session limited to agency heads also focussed on digital issues.

The ICN CAP is an opt-in framework, open to all agencies including those that are not ICN members. It builds on fundamental principles of fair and effective agency procedures fully consistent with the extensive work of the ICN in this field, reflecting the broad consensus within the global competition community. The starting point was the MFP project brought forward by the US DOJ in June 2018 which has been developed into the ICN CAP as an ICN Steering Group project. The CAP framework text and ICN CAP press release are available on the ICN website.

At the Annual Conference, last year’s work products were approved, including guiding ICN Recommended Practices on Investigative Process. All work products are available at the ICN website.

The Annual Conference once more provided an opportunity for members and other stakeholders to have in-depth discussions about existing work products and future topics. The ICN provides one of the most important forums for experience sharing and an informal venue for maintaining regular contact to address practical competition concerns.

The 2020 ICN Annual Conference will be jointly hosted by the US DOJ and the US FTC.