Global antitrust BRICS’ style

3rd BRICS Competition Law Forum co-organised by

UCL Centre for Law, Economics and Society and the HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development

as part of the VII St. Petersburg International Legal Forum

This third edition of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy forum brings together a number of BRICS and non-BRICS competition officials, academics and NGO representatives to discuss important issues relating to the global governance of competition law with the aim to build a concrete BRICS agenda for competition law and policy reform. The workshop forms part of the public engagement of the Director of the CLES@UCL, professor Ioannis Lianos, following the establishment of a BRICS Joint Research Platform in May 2016, in the context of the second edition of the BRICS competition law forum, which, in addition to its task to improving the quality of decision-making within BRICS’ competition authorities, also aims to serve as an alternative forum in the constitution of a global deliberative space in the area of competition law. For this new vision on the role of BRICS in the global governance of competition law and in the development of a more progressive competition law agenda globally, Read professor Lianos’ recent publication:

Schedule - 18 May 2017

09:30 Registration

10:00 – 14:00
Panel 1: Antitrust in the Global Economy: Challenges for Regional Alliances

In today’s world, which is characterized by the intensification of the globalization of the economy, the direct influence of transnational corporations on the state of competition in the national markets of different countries, primarily developing ones, is growing at an increasing rate. In a number of areas (pharmaceutical and digital markets, global food value chains and so on), this role of global businesses became so significant, that they managed to practically avoid any serious antitrust scrutiny but also turned to be posing an apparent threat to the some developing states national security and social stability. The globalization of antimonopoly regulation tools is clearly lagging behind the processes of globalization and technological renewal of the economy.

Under these conditions, regional cooperation (within the framework of the BRICS, Commonwealth of Independent States, the Eurasian Economic Union,  etc.) is meant to mark the formation of a new round of a global competition law regime that provides for the creation of effective tools for cooperation of antimonopoly bodies. These tools will help them to exchange information, conduct joint investigations of anticompetitive practices of transnational corporations, consider cases of economic concentration, as well as to exchange  experiences. Such cooperation will also revive the work of the cooperative mechanisms proposed by section F of the UN Set of Rules and Principles on Competition.

At the same time, the cooperation of antimonopoly bodies in regional formats has a potential for making the global marketplace fairer as it has an ability to promote a form of competition encouraging a broader dissemination of knowledge and advanced technologies and, at the same time, eliminating barriers imposed on the global flows of innovation by both the global technological monopolies and cartel-like technological joint ventures burgeoning within their “walled gardens” at the expense of the excluded consumers and entrepreneurs around the world.

Moderator: Sergey Puzyrevskiy – Deputy Head, FAS Russia

Key speakers:

Igor Artemiev – Head of FAS Russia

Commissioner Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo – Administrative Council for Economic Defense of Brazil – CADE

Guillermo Valles – Director, International Trade in Goods, Services and Commodities Division, UNCTAD*

Representative of the Eurasian Economic Commission

A.V. Gruzdev – Deputy Head of the Minister for Economic Development*

Uttam Chand Nahta – Member, Сompetition Commission of India

Theodor Thanner – Head, Austrian Competition Authority*

Serik Gumangarin – Vice-minister of the national economy of Kazakhstan Republic

Dennis Davis – Judge President, South African Competition Appeal Court, Professor, University of Cape Town, RSA

Anna Numerova – Partner, Law Firm “Egorov, Puginskyi, Afanasiev and Partners”

Alexey Ivanov – Director, HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development

Ioannis Lianos – Professor of Global Competition Law and Public Policy, UCL, Chief Researcher, HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development

Vassily Rudomino – Senior Partner, Law Firm “ALRUD”

Xianlin Wang – Professor, University of Shanghai Jiao Tong (China)

Michel Reynolds – Of Councel, Law Firm “Allen&Overy”

Anton Rogachevskyi – Vice-president on legal matters, LLP “Baltika”

14:00 – 15:00
Break

15:00 – 18:00
Panel 2: Promoting competition and innovation through access to non-voluntary licensing: the pharmaceutical industry experience

Providing open access to scientific developments and using various forms of compulsory licensing have become one of the key tools for stimulating innovation and development in developed economies. For example, the declaration of the Max Planck Institute (Germany), signed by 40 distinguished legal scholars from 25 countries, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the TRIPS Agreement expressly states, in particular, that “compulsory licensing ensures the efficiency of innovation markets by reducing the risks of using patents as barriers to invention and innovation”.

In its recent report “Promoting Innovation and Access to Health Technologies”, the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines is also concluding that the WTO Members must make full use of TRIPS flexibilities as reaffirmed by the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health and also must demand free and wide access to knowledge obtained as a result of scientific research created at the state expense.

How to use such instruments as non-voluntary licensing and access to knowledge to address the developmental needs in the pharmaceutical sector both in the competition law and intellectual property law contexts? What are the best practices to follow? The session will examine the Russian and other international experiences in the use of various tools and methods of non-voluntary licensing and will evaluate their effectiveness, from a legal and economic perspective, in view of the need to promote innovation.

Moderator: Timofey Nizhegorodtsev –Head of the Department for Control over Social Sphere and Trade at the FAS Russia

Key speakers:

Igor Artemiev – Head of FAS Russia;

Lyudmila Novoselova – Chair at the Russian Federal Specialized Court on IP Rights;

William Comanor – Professor, University of California (USA)

Rochelle Dreyfuss – Professor, New-York University (USA)

Alexey Ivanov – Director, HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development;

Ioannis Lianos – Professor of Global Competition Law and Public Policy, UCL, Chief Researcher, HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development

Björn Lundqvist – Professor, Stockholm University (Sweden);

Julian Peňa – Partner, Allende & Brea, Buenos Aires; visiting professor University of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Vikram Puniya – CEO, Pharmsintez LLC

Jerome Reichman – Professor, Duke University (USA)

Pierre Regibeau – Vice President, Charles River Associates (UK, Belgium)

Maria Kobanenko – Adviser, Law Office “Egorov, Puginskyi, Afanasiev and Partners”

17:40 General Discussion and Conclusions

18:00 Reception

Schedule - 19 May 2017

09:30 Registration

10:00 – 12:00
Panel 3: Global mergers in the food sector and competition law and policy

The session will be devoted to the competition policy aspects raised by the recent mega-mergers in the food sector, in particular between large agro-chem and seed companies. These transactions will be assessed by a number of competition authorities around the world and raise important concerns as to the promotion of innovation in this crucial area of economic activity, the control of the global food value chains and the role of farmers in it.

Food production is of course an area of great economic and geopolitical importance. Tendencies of demand increase, which are expected to take place in the coming years, put a strong pressure to increase output which intensifies environmental impact, given increasing sustainability challenges (degradation of soil and reduction of arable land due to urban sprawl, water scarcity, biofuel consumption, climate change, etc.).

Thus, these transactions of economic concentration put before the competition authorities new tasks related to the consideration of a wide range of public interests (protecting the environment, meeting the needs of people in sufficient and high-quality food, diversifying sources of innovation in the agricultural sector, etc.), and features of the work of global value chains. These tasks will require both a shift in approaches to the analysis of transactions of economic concentration and a significant increase in efficiency in the interaction of competition authorities in different jurisdictions while considering global transactions of economic concentration, especially in developing countries.

Moderator: Andrey Tsyganov – Deputy Head of the FAS Russia

Key speakers:

Cristina Caffara – Vice President, Head of European Competition Practice, CRA

Dennis Davis – Judge President, South African Competition Appeal Court

Anna Mirochinenko – Head of the Department for Control over Chemical Industry and Agro-industrial Complex, Russian FAS

Mary Hendrickson – Professor, University of Missouri-Columbia (USA)

Alexey Ivanov – Director, HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development

Ioannis Lianos – Professor of Global Competition Law and Public Policy, UCL, Chief Researcher, HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development

Dmitriy Katalevsky – Director for Industrial Programs, Skoltech University; Associate Professor, RANEPA

Eugenia Rakhmanina – Head of Antimonopoly Practice, Linklaters CIS

Shyam Khemani – Special Adviser, SKP Business Consulting LLP (USA)

Reena das Nair – Senior researcher, Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development, University of Johannesburg (RSA)

Vitaly Pruzhanskyi – Expert, RBB Economics (Belgium=00–

Pierre Regibeau – Vice President, Charles River Associate (UK, Belgium);

Jerome Reichman – Professor, Duke University (USA)

Sergey Paraschuk –Associate professor, Сhair of Business Law of the Moscow State University by M.V. Lomonosov

12:00 – 14:00
Panel 4: Digital Economy and Challenges for the Competition Law and Policy

Digital platforms, algorithms, big data and digital identities are all redefining the way the global economy operates. All this changes the way consumers consume, producers produce and traders trade. At the same time, the level of concentration in the digital markets is reaching new heights – “in Silicon Valley a handful of giants are enjoying market shares and profit margins not seen since the robber barons in the late 19th century”, – reporting the Economist.

Does this changing model of market competition require the new instruments of antitrust regulation and readjustment of the existing ones? Is the good old antitrust still capable to deal with this brand new world of the digital age? How the competition authorities all around the world should address the global digital value chains and growing digital divide? Basically, shall antitrust be reinvented for the digital age?

Moderator: Andrey Tsarikovskiy – Stats-secretary – Deputy Head of the FAS Russia

Key speakers:

Cristina Caffara – Vice President, Head of European Competition Practice, CRA

Alexey Ivanov – Director, HSE-Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development

Еlena Zaeva – Head of Department for control over IT and telecommunications

Wolfgang Kerber – Professor, Philipps-University Marburg (Germany)

Barak Orbach – Professor, University of Arizona (USA)

Marcio De Oliveira Junior – Visiting Scholar, UCL Faculty of Laws (UK), former Chairman at CADE (Brazil)

Denis Gavrilov – Adviser, Law Office “Egorov, Puginskyi, Afanasiev and Partners”

Xianlin Wang – Professor, University of Shanghai Jiao Tong (China)

Yaroslav Kulik – Partner, Head of antimonopoly practice, Head of South Korea Desk of the Law Company ART DE LEX

Nicolo Zingales – Lecturer, University of Sussex (UK)

Guangyao Xu – Professor, Nankai University (China)

Queries

Please contact:

Professor Ioannis Lianos
Chair, Global Competition Law and Public Policy
Director, Centre for Law, Economics and Society
Faculty of Laws, University College London
email: i.lianos@ucl.ac.uk

Irina Atrokhova
Deputy Director
National Research University Higher School of Economics
HSE–Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development
Email: iatrokhova@hse.ru