Antitrust Economics in Competition Law
Oxford, England
16 October 2006
Hosted By: the University of Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy
Dr. Mark Williams, Director of NERA's European Competition Policy group in London and Brussels, spoke at the Centre for Competition Law and Policy at Oxford University on 16 October 2006. The program of visiting speakers brings together leading practitioners and academics to discuss recent developments in competition law and policy from the standpoint of both law and economics. Other speakers in this year's seminar series included Professor Mario Monti, former Commissioner for Competition at the European Commission; Ali Nikpay of the Office of Fair Trading; and Philippe Chappatte, Partner in competition law at Slaughter and May.
Competition agencies including the OFT, Competition Commission, and European Commission increasingly base key decisions on economic analysis. Most major competition agencies have a full time chief economist, and a high proportion of competition regulators in recent years have been economists. In merger cases, theoretical models of industrial organization lie at the heart of all merger analysis, while the outcomes of cases are increasingly shaped by econometric analysis in the form of bidding studies, estimation of demand elasticities, as well as calibration of merger simulation models. Economics also plays a significant role in cartel cases, where economic methods are used to calculate "but for" damages of what would have happened to price in the counterfactual world without the cartel; and in Article 102 (formerly Article 82) abuse cases, where economic analysis of incentives lies at the core of economic theories of exclusion, as well as at the heart of debates between Chicago and post-Chicago schools of antitrust.
In this seminar, Dr. Williams provided an overview of competition economics in action, including issues such as the various concepts of competition, the cellophane fallacy, market definition, and the economics of monopoly; oligopoly and unilateral effects; game theory, coordinated effects, and tacit coordination; and pricing.
Dr. Williams has over a decade of experience in competition policy economics. Recently completed cases include Phase 2 merger cases at the European Commission Inco/Falconbridge and Dong/Elsam/E2, and the British Salt/New Cheshire Salt Works merger at the Competition Commission, in which the CC reversed its provisional SLC finding against the merger.
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