Charles James, Assistant Attorney General at the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, took office following the arrival of the Bush team in the White House. He spoke to David Samuels about how he sees the Division’s agenda for the next four years

Fordham this year was full of treats as well as breaking news. David Samuels reports on the 28th Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy held in New York in October

The Use of Economics in EC Competition Law conference, which took place on October 4 and 5 at the Dorchester Hotel in London, produced some lively analysis. James Eyers and Máire McGuire report

The Eighth IBC Annual Advanced EC Competition Law Conference, providing an update on competition law and policy over the last 12 months, was held in Brussels in November. Máire McGuire reports

The IBA’s annual meeting in Cancun, Mexico, discussed how competition in Latin American might reach the next stage. David Samuels attended

The ABA antitrust section recently hosted a new event: the Fall Forum on New Technologies, which was inevitably dominated by Microsoft. GCR’s Washington DC correspondent John Gledhill attended

Maria Cecilia Andrade, associate in the litigation department of Pinheiro Neto Advogados, São Paulo, traces the development of common competition law in South America’s largest trading block

After two years in force, South Africa’s Competition Act has recently been revised. Robin Legh and Derek Lötter of Bowman Gilfillan Inc, Johannesburg, look at the amendments and assesses their impact

The replacement of India’s outmoded legislation represents a welcome shift of emphasis from the curbing of monopolies to the promotion of competition. By Akshay Jaitly and Preeti Rathee of Trilegal, New Delhi

John Vickers, Director General of the UK’s Office of Fair Trading, spoke to David Samuels about, among other things, the proposed changes to the 1998 Competition Act, the challenge of fulfilling the Office’s expanded ‘frontline’ enforcement role and the impact of the EU ‘modernisation’ programme on Member State jurisdiction

The UK Government wants to sharpen the teeth of UK competition law, and the ideas in its White Paper amount to a show of faith in competition policy. David Samuels asked a group of City competition specialists selected from An International Who’s Who of Competition Lawyers what they thought

John Wotton, a partner, and Carol Swaffer, a professional support lawyer in international law firm Allen & Overy’s European Antitrust Group look ahead to the next stage in the revamping of UK competition law

Trevor Soames, until now competition partner at Norton Rose, is moving to Howrey Simon Arnold & White. Howrey Simon has a Brussels office opening in the New year - as previously reported in Global Competition Review.

Latham & Watkins has pulled off a coup by poaching three of Coca-Cola’s highly-rated competition team. The most prized addition is certainly that of senior competition counsel and former deputy assistant Attorney General at the DoJ Abbot ‘Tad’ Lipsky, who is joining the Washington office. Michael Egge, counsel, is going with Lipsky to Washington. John Colahan, also counsel, is moving to the office in London.

US Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Nannes has announced that he is returning to Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom after just three years at the Department of Justice in Washington DC.

Citing 'increased scrutiny of mergers by European regulators', US firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has announced the setting-up of an EU competition practice in its London office this month.

Kaye Scholer LLP has further expanded its Washington competition team. The New York firm - renowned through the decades for antitrust - announced recently that it had hired Claudia Higgins. Higgins has been the FTC assistant director of regional litigation; before that she led multiple ‘complex merger investigations’.

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher says it will open an office in Munich in the New Year. The office will offer antitrust advice, through new recruit Michael Walther.

Wilmer Cutler & Pickering and Berlin law firm Quack Rechsanwälte have announced they are merging as of January 1 2002.

Madelin Perrick has joined Coudert Brothers Coppens Van Ommeslaghe & Faurès as counsel at the firm’s Brussels office.

Henk S Post will join Stibbe’s Amsterdam office on January 1.

Koen Platteau, competition specialist at Linklaters & Alliance in Brussels, has joined Benelux law firm Loyens & Loeff. He started at the firm’s Brussels office in October.

Bill Neukom, general counsel and vicepresident of Microsoft for the last 22 years, is stepping down.

The National Economic Research Associates Ltd (Nera) has announced that it is to open its first office in Italy.

It was party time in Washington last month as American and European antitrust agencies celebrated 10 years of the EU-US cooperation treaty. To mark the occasion, senior antitrust officials from both the US and EU met for a day of festivities and talks.

The Canadian Competition Commissioner, Konrad von Finkenstein, has been appointed the first chairman of the new enforcement agencies’ ‘club’, the International Competition Network (ICN).

The head of the Canadian Competition Bureau, Konrad von Finkenstein, has refused to hit back at the OECD following a series of stinging criticisms levelled by the influential body.

Agustín Navarro has been appointed by Mexican President Vincente Fox to the Federal Competition Commission.

Correction: Baker & McKenzie 'GCR 100' figures

The European Commission has appointed Serge Durande to the position of Hearing Officer.

Senior magistrate Philippe Nasse has been appointed Vice President of the Conseil de la Concurrence, France’s competition regulator.

The Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority (JCRA) came into being on May 1 2001, although key personnel are only now being appointed. The Authority will act as an independent regulatory body promoting greater competition on the island.

New Zealand’s minister for commerce has announced the appointment of Paula Rebstock as Deputy Chair at the Commerce Commission.

Fonterra, the product of a merger between NZ Dairy Group and Kiwi Dairies in June and technically now New Zealand’s biggest company, has won parliamentary authorisation to continue operating. New Zealand’s competition regulator had previously rejected the merger.

In a rare intervention, the Norwegian government has involved itself in proceedings initiated by the European Commission against 23 petroleum companies active in the Norwegian continental shelf oilfield.

The European Commission’s stance on competition and intellectual property is in doubt following a landmark case about a data system owned by IMS Health, a supplier of data to the pharmaceutical industry.

Car manufacturers’ ability to control distribution in Europe took a knock after the European Commission fined DaimlerChrysler for infringing competition rules. This is the fourth time since 1998 that the Commission has fined a car manufacturer.

In a deal that sets a cash sale record for a German pharmaceutical company, industrial giant Bayer has agreed to buy Aventis CropScience for 7.25 billion euros. The CropScience business is a joint venture between Aventis and Schering AG, with Aventis, the Franco- German life sciences firm, holding roughly 75 per cent.

A US federal court has ordered Visa and MasterCard to let banks within their credit card network issue rival cards. The verdict did not, however, signify total victory for the US Department of Justice, which started the case in 1998; the court approved the ownership structure of the associations in the face of the Department’s complaint, and allowed for the continuation of ‘overlapping’ boards.

Continuing the consolidation within the paper industry, Ohio-based Mead and New York-based Westvaco have agreed to merge. A US$3-billion stock-swap deal will create the US’s fourth-largest paper company.

Cadbury Schweppes, the world’s third largest soft drinks company, will buy Pernod Ricard’s soft drinks brands and businesses in Continental Europe, North America and Australia for £442 million.

EchoStar will merge with Hughes Electronics - owner of DirecTV - if regulatory scrutiny of the deal suggests no significant adverse competitive effects.

The US Federal Trade Commission has approved Phillips Petroleum’s acquisition of Tosco Corporation without requiring either company to divest any assets. Phillips closed the US$7-billion deal on September 17.

The newly re-elected Coalition of the Liberal and National Parties plans to carry out a detailed review of the application and administration of the restrictive trade practices and merger provisions of the Trade Practices Act 1974. Potential amendments to the third line forcing provisions provisions dealing with misuse of market power are also under consideration.

Emma Marsh and David Holme
Allens Arthur Robinson
Sydney/Melbourne

More big fines for conspiracies, new Abuse of Dominance Enforcement Guidelines, a speech on enforcement priorities by the Commissioner of Competition and private actions by indirect purchasers all signal a continued high level of enforcement activity in Canada.

John Clifford and Mark Opashinov
McMillan Binch
Toronto

The Danish government has proposed changes to the Danish Competition Act providing for larger fines, and introducing fines and possible jail sentence for individuals.

Jan-Erik Svensson
Gorrissen Federspiel Kierkegaard
Copenhagen

Establishing a balance between the protection of IP rights and the maintenance of competition is a challenge for all competition law systems. It essentially sets the need to provide an incentive to innovate and to reward investment in new ideas against the need to ensure efficient exploitation of those new ideas through a competitive market place.

This CFI interim order, if confirmed by the Court, shifts the balance in favour of IP rights by interpreting strictly the conditions under which a right-holder may be legally obliged to license that right to its competitors.

The Commission has still to complete its full investigation, and the Court to hear the case in full and given judgment. However, the indications are that the Magill case, regarded in many quarters as a high-water mark in this area, will be firmly confined to its facts by the Court.

Joanna Goyder
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Brussels

In contrast to competition authorities in many other EU Member States, the Federal Cartel Office in Germany is active in using its powers under Article 9 of the EC Merger Regulation in order to extend its jurisdiction to cases with a Community dimension which primarily affect national or regional markets in Germany. According to the President of the FCO, Dr Ulf Böge, the application of merger control rules by national authorities flows from the principle of subsidiarity. In cases which have a strong regional or local impact and require specific knowledge of regional or local markets in Germany, the FCO will continue to request a referral back to its jurisdiction.

Carel Maske
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Berlin

The Canal+/Stream case is likely to become a landmark precedent under Italian merger law, due to the complex balancing exercise required from the IAA as between the increase in market power (which is self-evident in a merger-to-monopoly case) and the ‘natural monopoly’ theory (arguably, only one platform can efficiently be present in the Italian Pay-TV market).

The unconventional ‘failing firm’ defence raised by the merging firms - claiming that at least one of Canal+ or Stream, if not both, would become insolvent absent a clearance - as well as the existence of a recent abuse of dominant position case in Italy which went against Canal+, and conflicting EU and national precedents, all contribute to making the IAA’s task even more challenging.

Gian Luca Zampa
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Rome

In its recent Practice Note, the Commerce Commission has provided valuable guidance on how it proposes to apply a new substantial lessening of competitionj test under the Commerce Act.

Peter Hinton and Claire Harris
Simpson Grierson
Wellington

The Commission decision on the acquisition of joint control over Hidrocantábrico by Grupo Villar Mir and EnBW constitutes a clear example of how the Commission is increasingly making use of the merger control rules in specific transactions to liberalise energy markets.

Álvaro Iza
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Madrid

In a decision of May 2001 in the JC Decaux/Affichage Holding case, the Swiss Competition Commission held for the first time that the acquisition of a minority shareholding that does not fall within the scope of Swiss merger control could constitute an unlawful agreement restricting competition.

Benoît Merkt
Lenz & Staehelin
Geneva

The last few years have involved dramatic changes for the UK’s Office of Fair Trading and further important changes will be introduced in the near future. The OFT, headed by a Director General of Fair Trading, currently John Vickers, has the job of making markets work well for consumers in the UK and has a principal role in the enforcement of the UK competition rules.

Alison Jones
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
London

Consumers today buy a lot online, and often the vendors are located in places far from where they would ever travel physically. But does that necessarily mean that the Internet makes geographic markets global? For some markets, perhaps. For others, perhaps not.

David H Evans
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue
Washington, DC

The decision in Crehan further underscores the importance of compliance with the Block Exemption for Vertical Restraints. All vertical agreements - including franchise agreements - must comply with its provisions by December 31, 2001. Franchisors who have not yet scrutinised their agreements with that deadline in mind should do so immediately.

Philip F Zeidman and Steven B Feirman
Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe LLP
Washington, DC