We examine the effect of the Amnesty Plus policy on the incentives of firms to engage in cartel activities. Amnesty Plus is aimed at attracting amnesty applications by encouraging firms, convicted in one market, to report their collusive agreements in other markets. It has been vigorously...

We believe the rules set out in the Draft Guidelines for the treatment of standardization agreements under Article 101 risk chilling innovation and, in some industries, also undermining the process of standardization. Anne Layne-Farrar & Jorge Padilla (LECG)

Do the Draft Guidelines seek to define problems and propose solutions in a manner that may be interpreted as reflecting a bias against the legitimate and pro-competitive exercise of intellectual property rights? Richard Taffet (Bingham)

This article identifies 10 aspects where, in the author’s view, the Commission’s proposed amendments should be further clarified or dropped in order to reach a sound competition policy solution and enhance legal certainty. Axel Gutermuth (Arnold & Porter)

To promote innovation and economic development, the standard-setting process should be geared towards identifying the “best in breed†technologies irrespective of the existing market position of the various companies participating in the standard-setting procedure....

Economic literature often offers conflicting views on the likely efficiency effects of information exchanges, communication between firms, and market transparency. On the one hand, it is argued that increased information dissemination improves firm planning to the benefit of society (including...

This discussion paper resulted in the publication <I>The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy</I> (2007), 7(1), 1135.<P> Intuitively, extending the period of repose for price fixing agreements enhances the effectiveness of competition policy enforcement. This paper proofs this intuition wrong. As...</p></i>

We analyze how leniency affects cartel pricing in an infinitely-repeated oligopoly model where the fine rates are linked to illegal gains and detection probabilities depend on the degree of collusion. A novel aspect of this study is that we focus on the worst possible outcome. We investigate the...

For a general class of oligopoly models with price competition, we analyze the impact of ex-ante leniency programs in antitrust regulation on the endogenous maximal-sustainable cartel price. This impact depends upon industry characteristics including its cartel culture. Our analysis disentangles...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in the 'Journal of Law Economics & Organization' (2013). Volume 29(5), pages 1114-1144.<P> We estimate the deterrence effects of U.S. merger policy instruments with respect tothe composition and frequency of future merger notifications. Data from the...</p>