The International Competition Network (ICN) held its 12th annual meeting, on April 24-26, 2013, in Warsaw, Poland. Such meetings help to improve competition agencies' abilities to review and act against harmful transnational mergers and cartels, while reducing the regulatory compliance costs for business.
ACCC Chairman Rod Sims led the Australian delegation which joined more than 500 delegates, representing more than 80 competition law and antitrust agencies from around the world, including competition experts from international organisations and the legal, business, consumer, and academic communities.
“The annual ICN meeting has helped agencies move toward best practices in competition law enforcement and build greater enforcement cooperation between agencies. This cooperation is critical for the ACCC as it strengthens our capacity to tackle the impact of international anti-competitive practices on behalf of Australians," ACCC Chairman Rod Sims said.
The conference showcased the achievements of ICN working groups on cartels, competition advocacy, competition agency effectiveness, mergers and unilateral conduct.
In a speech to a pre-ICN meeting World Bank Forum, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman Rod Sims outlined the benefits of competition policy reforms in Australia. Text of the speech is available here: https://www.accc.gov.au/media/speeches
The ICN was created in October 2001, when the ACCC, as Australia’s competition agency, together with competition agencies from 14 jurisdictions including Japan, Korea, the European Union, Canada, Mexico and the United States agreed to jointly seek to increase understanding of competition policy and promote convergence toward best practices around the world. The ICN now includes 126 member agencies from 111 jurisdictions.
ICN documents are available at www.internationalcompetitionnetwork.org