TRAINING FOR LEADERSHIP

5th Seminar on competition law and economics

On 25 November 2008, the Rafael del Pino Foundation organised its fifth seminar on competition law and economics under the title “Horizontal Agreements between Companies”. The proceedings were opened by the Chairman of the Spanish National Competition Commission, Luis Berenguer.

With this seminar, the Rafael del Pino Foundation is continuing with an initiative that seeks to analyse the most significant issues concerning competition and market law and economics. As on previous occasions, the Directors of the Seminar were Santiago Martínez Lage and Amadeo Petitbò.

The programme for this event, which brought together 51 specialists, was as follows:

Introduction:
 Spain’s new competition law and horizontal agreements between companies, Luis Berenguer;

Types of collusive behaviour and discussion:
 Collusion from an economic standpoint, Enrique Cañizares;
 The international dimension of cartels, Antonio Creus; Agreements, decisions and other explicit  behaviours, Ricardo Alonso Soto;
 Agreed and consciously parallel practices, Helmut Brokelmann;
 Other types of behaviour: facilitating practices, inverted T agreements, Inmaculada Gutiérrez;

Types of horizontal restrictions on competition and discussion:
 Price setting and other commercial transaction conditions, Juan Manuel Fernández;
 Market sharing, customer allocation and limits on output, Juan Jiménez Laiglesia;
 Information exchanges, Cani Fernández;
 Fraudulent bidding, Fernando Jiménez Latorre;

Disciplinary procedure regarding horizontal agreements and discussion:
 The investigative powers of the competition authorities, Clara Guzmán;
 The limits on the investigative powers of the competition authorities, Salomé Santos Lorenzo;
 Disciplinary procedure and safeguards, Luis Ortiz;
 Jurisdictional control over administrative decisions on cartels, Santiago Soldevila;

Ways of starting and ending disciplinary procedures regarding horizontal agreements and discussion:
 The policy of clemency in the EU and Spain, Patricia Vidal;
 An economic view of the policy of clemency, Nadine Watson;
 Agreed decisions in disciplinary procedures regarding cartels, María Luisa Tierno Centella.