COMPANY: HalliburtonTITLE: Assistant general counsel, regulatory mattersBASED: Houston, Texas

GLOBAL COMPETITION REVIEW’s editor DAVID SAMUELS spoke to Fernando Sánchez Ugarte, President of Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Competencia (CFC) and recently-appointed chair of the International Competition Network Steering Group

The world’s enforcers were in Asia in November, at meetings in Japan and Taiwan. DAVID SAMUELS considers whether competition policy in the region is finally coming of age

HIDETO ISHIDA and VASSILI MOUSSIS of Anderson Mori, Tokyo, report on the clarifications issued by the Japan Fair Trade Commission on the informal prior consultation procedure for proposed mergers

Antitrust laws do not necessarily translate into effective competition policy, and a top-down approach to rulemaking, such as that proposed by the WTO, may not be the best way of achieving transnational competition policy goals. By MICHAEL W NICHOLSON of the US Federal Trade Commission

ANTHONY F BALDANZA and HUY DO of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, Toronto, review proposed amendments to the Canadian antitrust regime which in particular would reduce the scope of the efficiencies defence and reform the criminal conspiracy provisions under the much-criticised Section 45 of the Competition Act

LEONARD WAVERMAN, Professor and Chair, Department of Economics, London Business School, and Special Consultant, NERA, believes DG Comp should bring competition policy to bear on EU State aid cases and only take on those that meet the standards of Articles 81 and 82

Before joining Nestlé, Peter Vandeghinste was a partner at Puelinckx-Schilz-Linden-Grolig (later Liedekerke) in Brussels. He went in-house in 1993 and is now assistant vice-president of the Nestlé group

Despite a full diary as Canadian Commissioner of Competition, Konrad von Finckenstein has managed to steer the International Competition Network through its first year. David Samuels met him shortly after its first meeting in Naples to discuss the ups and downs of launching the organisation

At the ABA's annual meeting in August, antitrust specialists discussed whether the US is still the centre of the antitrust universe. Christine Sommer, of Baker & Miller PLLC in Washington, DC attended and now reports

The sixth running of the IBA's competition event in Fiesole, Italy, this September was dominated by merger sessions and timely speeches. John Jolliffe and David Samuels report

Simon Writer of Allens Arthur Robinson, Sydney outlines the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's recently announced leniency policy, which offers whistleblowing individuals and companies the carrot of immunity alongside the stick of criminal sanctions

Svend Hylleberg, Chairman of the Danish Competition Council, has accepted GCR's invitation to to reply to the research we published in July. Here are his thoughts

As efforts aimed at narrowing the gap between US and EC merger control continue, it is worth noting the similarity in remedy policies on both sides of the Atlantic—and how it came about. Thomas Mueller and Jan Heithecker of Wilmer Cutler & Pickering, Brussels and Berlin report

Maya Barr of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Brussels, reviews events that led to the Court of First Instance's judgment on Airtours, and asks what it all means for the assessment of market power