The Roundtable’s core philosophy is embodied in Shanker Singham’s book, A General Theory of Trade and Competition (Cameron May, 2007). Singham notes that market distortions can have a significant impact on trade, and that government practices that are anti-competitive practices, or have anti-competitive effects should be disciplined. The book explores the interface between competition and trade, and finds that the notion of consumer welfare enhancement is at the core of both open trade and open competition systems. It then explores what consumer welfare enhancement means in both the competition and trade areas. In the competition area, consumer welfare enhancement means maximizing productive and allocative efficiency. It therefore puts a premium on innovation and efficiency, and is skeptical of competitor welfare concerns (finding that rival firms often charge others with allegedly anti-competitive practices when these practices are precisely what consumers want).
All Roundtable meetings focus on interactive discussions based on case studies where we can work with competition agencies on their overall approach to the integration of consumer welfare concepts into the overall implementation of competition law. Roundtable events are government to government dialogues, with limited private sector participation (other than the Roundtable itself, as well as academic experts). The reason for this is that we aim to provide a forum for competition agencies to discuss issues of policy in a private forum without press or private company participation. The aim is to ensure that there is a dialogue that changes the way that competition agencies look at implementation of policy. We have found that such a dialogue is not possible where a large audience of non-government actors are present.
The Roundtable achieves these goals through a highly moderated panel discussion, featuring a running discussion amongst and between the competition agencies represented. We use hypothetical case studies in order to stimulate discussion and deal with concrete issues. We find this approach is much more conducive to providing important technical assistance for competition agencies around the world. The Roundtable’s goal is not to have a large audience of interested private sector and academic officials, but rather do technical assistance and training to newer competition agencies and act as a resource for them in the implementation of competition law and policy. We find that a smaller gathering under non-attribution rules where competition agencies themselves are free to speak is a useful and welcome opportunity for these agencies to discuss sensitive and sometimes difficult topics without fear of their discussions being reported on or being part of the wider public domain.
In the past, we have discussed, inter alia the following topics;
(i) The role of efficiencies in competition analysis
(ii) Consumer Welfare enhancement as an organizing principle in competition analysis.
(iii) Interface between competition policy and intellectual property policy.
(iv) Interplay between Sectoral Regulators and Competition Agencies.
(v) Competition Policy in an Age of E-Commerce
(vii) Different Approaches to Dominance in Competition Policy.
Geographically, the Roundtable has spanned the globe, featuring discussions in and with the following agencies. These events have taken place since 1996:
(i) Argentina
(ii) Brazil
(iii) China
(iv) India
(v) Japan
(vii) US FTC
(viii) European Commission
(ix) Mexico
(x) Venezuela
(xi) Vietnam
(xii) Indonesia
(xiii) Philippines
(xiv) Thailand
(xv) S. Korea
(xvi) Colombia
