The 'Best Practices for Expert Economic Opinions' by the Bundeskartellamt in international Context

The overarching trend in Europe and, indeed, worldwide has recently been the increasing importance of economic analysis in competition law and policy. This has led inter alia to a growing number of expert economic opinions submitted in competition law proceedings both before authorities and before courts. They constitute a potentially important “input channel” for (new) theoretical and empirical economic insights. From the Bundeskartellamt's experience a significant part of the submissions has, however, failed to meet certain minimum quality standards. Therefore, the necessity for a binding statement arose which resulted in the publication of “Best Practices for expert economic opinions” in October 2010. In addition to sketching the structure and content of the Bundeskartellamt's notice this article aims at putting it into the international context. It demonstrates that the “Best Practices” are broadly in line with guidance documents issued by other competition authorities worldwide. The underlying fundamental issue is the proper integration of economic expertise in competition law enforcement