Concurrency and Cooperation: Ex-ante and ex-post approaches in competition policy

In light of the CMA’s review of the UK’s concurrency arrangements, the Centre for Competition and Regulatory Policy (CCRP) and OXERA are delighted to invite you to an event to share the experience across sectors, and ideally to generate some fresh insights, on making concurrency arrangements work better.

The event will take place from  09:00 - 17:10 on Thursday 7th March 2024 at City, University of London and online via Zoom. Aside from issues about the efficiency and effectiveness of concurrency in different sectors, we hope to explore topics such as whether the desirability of concurrency depends on the nature of the powers of the sectoral regulators, the experience across the channel in the EU, as well as concurrency in promoting consumer welfare.

Schedule

09:00 - 09:30: Arrival and registration

09:30 - 09:40: Welcome, introduction and rules of the day – Xeni Dassiou (City, University of London - CCRP) and Luis Correia da Silva (OXERA)

09:40 - 10:40: Session 1: NCA perspectives – Sharon Horwitz (CMA), Peter Freeman (CAT), and Alasdair Smith (CAT)

Sharon Horwitz will provide an overview of how concurrency works in the UK and speak about the CMA’s 10 years concurrency review. Peter Freeman and Alasdair Smith will look at the benefits and pitfalls of concurrency powers by considering past CMA/CAT market investigations and referrals they were involved in.

10:40 - 11:20: Session 2: Conduct regulators’ perspectives – Graeme Reynolds (FCA) and Peter Andrews (OXERA)

This session will explore whether and how concurrency helped traditional conduct regulation, which could cut across the operation of markets, to take the form of more efficient interventions that utilise competition to protect consumers.

11:20 - 11:35: Break

11:35 - 12:35: Session 3: Perspectives from payments regulation – Helen Weeds (PSR), Matthew Cherry (PSR) and Jordi Gual (IESE)

This session will take a broad view of issues arising from concurrency in payments regulation and include a comparison of experiences at Ofcom and the PSR.

12:35 - 13:30: Lunch

13:30 - 14:30: Session 4: Utility regulators’ perspectives – Jon Stern (CCRP), Geoffrey Myers (LSE) and Hugh Mullan (OFCOM)

Jon Stern will give a brief history of how concurrency emerged in the UK for telecoms and then for electricity as well as discuss its growing role alongside competition policy from 2005 onwards and in the future. Geoffrey Myers will talk from his experience at Ofcom, discussing whether concurrency can be seen as a facet of sector regulation and commenting on the differences between competition cases and market studies/investigations. Hugh Mullan will talk about his experience at different concurrent regulators and discuss the role of concurrency in the regulatory toolbox.

14:30 - 15:55: Perspectives from the Mainland – Johan Keetelaar (OXERA), Paul De Bijl (ACM, Netherlands), Alexandre De Streel (University of Namur) and Antoine Babinet (DG Comp)

Johan Keetelaar will introduce the speakers and share his experience as a member of the core team that created ACM (The Netherlands). Paul de Bijl will follow up speaking about some actual ACM interventions and dilemmas, where ACM’s complete toolkit (competition, regulation and consumer) play an important role. Antoine Babinet will discuss the Digital Markets Act and the link between the (national and EU) competition frameworks. Alexandre de Streel’s contribution will be about improving institutional design to better supervise digital platforms.

15:55 - 16:10: Break

16:10 - 17:00: Roundtable and questions from floor – Chair: Arina Nikandrova (City, University of London - CCRP)

The roundtable will have introductory remarks from Amelia Fletcher (NBS/CCP, UEA) and feature all speakers. Each will speak briefly about a point of interest to them that has arisen during the day.

17:00 - 17:10: Closing remarks

Participants

Xeni Dassiou (Reader in Economics at City, University of London - CCRP)
Arina Nikandrova (Lecturer in Economics at City, University of London - CCRP)
Luis Correia da Silva (Chair and Partner at OXERA)
Sharon Horwitz (Director of Sectoral Regulation at CMA)
Peter Freeman (Senior Adviser at CAT)
Alasdair Smith (Ordinary Member at CAT)
Graeme Reynolds (Director of Competition at FCA)
Peter Andrews (Senior Adviser at OXERA)
Helen Weeds (Senior Adviser at PSR)
Matthew Cherry (Chief Economist at PSR)
Jordi Gual (Professor of Economics at IESE Business School)
Jon Stern (Honorary Visiting Professor at CCRP)
Geoffrey Myers (Visiting Professor in Practice at LSE)
Hugh Mullan (Economic Director at OFCOM)
Johan Keetelaar (Senior Adviser at OXERA)
Paul De Bijl (Chief Economist at ACM, Netherlands)
Alexandre De Streel (Professor of European Law at University of Namur)
Antoine Babinet (Deputy Head of Unit of DG Comp at European Commission)
Amelia Fletcher (Professor of Competition Policy at NBS/CCP, UEA)