by Kevin Coates | Feb 20, 2012 | Antitrust, Competition, Featured, Fines
My third column for the E!Sharp website has been published. It looks at the arguments for and against rewarding corporate compliance programmes by granting a reduction in competition fines if the companies are nevertheless caught breaking the competition rules: If a company stays out of just one cartel because of the compliance programme, the fine that it avoids will pay for the programme many times over. If you think compliance programmes are expensive, try non-compliance. And if that is not a sufficient incentive, a reduction of a fine where they have engaged in a cartel will make no difference at all. UPDATE: The article is no longer available on the ESharp website, so I’m reposting it here: Complicity and Compliance “Does the defence have anything to say in mitigation before I pass sentence?” “Yes, my lord. If it please the court, before robbing the bank in question, my client walked past three other banks. As he did so, he repeated to himself a mantra, ‘I must not rob banks, I must not rob banks.’ He had taught himself this mantra as a way to avoid falling into the temptation of criminal activity. However, he finally succumbed to that temptation and robbed the fourth bank. My client would like his sentence for robbing the fourth bank reduced on account of his not having robbed the first three.” “Really, counsel?” “Yes, my lord.” This is absurd, but it is very similar to a campaign by some multi-national corporations to reduce their – potential future – fines for breaking competition rules. The analogy isn’t perfect, but it’s closer than they would like....
by Kevin Coates | Feb 20, 2012 | Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets, Featured, Reviews
Concurrences has published a great review of my book in the latest edition of their Concurrences journal. Written by Thomas Vinje of Clifford Chance, the review concludes: One consistent and welcome aspect of this book is its focus on economics and its application in contemporary competition cases related to technology. The analysis is not stuck in the past, but focuses on up-to-date economic thinking and anticipates how that thinking might be applied going forward. Apart from its substantive depth, this book benefits from a fluent writing style: for a book on the law, it’s a real page-turner. For someone interested in the topic of technology markets and competition law, this book is no remedy for sleeplessness. It races through the key topics in a rather exciting way, without sacrificing substance. Not an easy...
by Kevin Coates | Jun 26, 2011 | Antitrust, Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets, Featured, Telecoms
A margin squeeze occurs if the difference between the retail prices charged by a dominant company and the wholesale prices it charges its competitors for comparable products is negative, or insufficient to cover the costs to the dominant company of providing its own retail products on the downstream market. These issues are discussed in Chapter Four of Competition Law and Regulation of Technology Markets. Since the book went to press, the Court of Justice has given a preliminary ruling in the TeliaSonera case (Case C-52/09, Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 17 February 2011, Konkurrensverket v TeliaSonera Sverige AB, ECR reports 2011 Page 00000), and the European Commission has issued a prohibition decision against Telekomunikacja Polska, the Polish telecoms operator, fining it € 127 million for a margin squeeze. (Press release here.) Case C-52/09 TeliaSonera TeliaSonera is the Swedish fixed telephone network operator, owning the local telecoms infrastructure – the local loop. TeliaSonera offered its retail competitors unbundled access to the local loop in line with its obligations under Regulation (EC) No 2887/2000 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on unbundled access to the local loop (OJ 2000 L 336, p. 4). It also offered an ADSL product intended for wholesale users, enabling those operators to supply retail broadband services to end users, but it did so voluntarily, without regulatory obligation. At the same time, TeliaSonera offered retail broadband connection services directly to end users, in competition with the companies to whom it supplied wholesale services. Further to national court proceedings alleging a margin squeeze, the court referred the following questions to...