5th Annual Trans-Atlantic Antitrust Dialogue on International and Comparative Competition Law: Unilateral Effects in Merger Control
London, UK
10 May 2005
Hosted By: the British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Dr. Mark Williams, Director of European Competition Policy at NERA, chaired a panel on unilateral effects at this annual conference, held at the Law Society in London on 10 May 2005. The panel of distinguished lawyers and economists also included Thomas Vinje, Partner of Clifford Chance LLP, and Greg Werden, Senior Economic Counsel of the US Department of Justice.
The session focused on the development of unilateral effects doctrine in the US and Europe. The panel noted that coordinated effects became a factor in European merger control in the early 1990s, in cases such as Kali und Salz, whereas the role of unilateral effects under the Dominance test was, at best, uncertain until the potential "gap" in merger control was cured by the introduction of the revised Significant Impediment to Effective Competition test, which came into effect with the new European Merger Regulation of January 2004.
The discussion focused on the Oracle-Peoplesoft merger, which was challenged by the US Department of Justice, but then cleared in the US following the decision of Judge Walker, and later cleared by the European Commission. Relevant issues included the proper method of analyzing bidding markets in merger control cases, the empirical and econometric techniques that can shed light on whether such mergers may lead to a reduction in competition, and the details of the Oracle merger itself.
Other speakers at the event included Philip Lowe, EU Director General Competition; Sir John Vickers, Chairman of the Office of Fair Trading; R. Hewitt Pate, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the US Department of Justice; and Judge Bo Vesterdorf, President of the Court of First Instance.
To contact us about this event, please click here.
