Tough economic times mean that many Czech firms have battened down the hatches.

Petr Rafaj, the new head of the Czech Republic’s Office for the Protection of Competition, began his job in July last year as a newcomer to competition law. Rosalind Donald spoke with him to discuss the challenges he faces and his vision for the authority.

Supermarkets in the Czech Republic are furious about new government measures designed to protect suppliers from aggressive pricing and unfair contracts. Rosalind Donald finds out why the country’s competition community is behind them.

Last year saw a number of regulatory institutional developments that appear to have reopened the debate, at least in some quarters, over the most effective and appropriate model for the regulated economic sectors, writes Miranda Cole of Covington & Burling in Brussels

Partner David Burns and associates Joshua Hess, Geoffrey Weien and Russell Gold of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP review last year’s antitrust enforcement record

Two Canadian courts have recently certified class actions alleging global price-fixing conspiracies, write Linda Plumpton, Omar Wakil and Sandeep Joshi of Torys LLP. The decisions are significant because they depart in key respects from the leading decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in this area. Read together, they suggest that the bar for certification of antitrust class actions in Canada may be lowering

When the antitrust group at Heller Ehrman disbanded in late 2008, it sent shockwaves through California’s antitrust landscape, reports Ron Knox. While the top of the state’s antitrust bar has remained relatively stable amid the chaos, several firms have positioned themselves to become the cream of the state’s antitrust crop over the next decade

Assistant chief, US Department of Justice, antitrust division, San Francisco field office

Chief, United States Department of Justice, antitrust division, San Francisco field office

The prosecutors in the US Department of Justice’s antitrust division field office in San Francisco have quietly – and sometimes not so quietly – cracked down on some of the largest international cartels in the world. But it wasn’t always that way. Ron Knox looks at the office’s work over the past two decades

Editor: Marjorie Holmes, partner, Reed Smith
Price: £125
Publisher: CMP Publishing

Review by Fergus Randolph QC, Brick Court Chambers, London and Brussels