The Law and Politics of Global Competition: Influence and Legitimacy in the International Competition Network
To register to attend this event, in person, or online, please complete the registration form below. Registration will close at 10am on the morning of the meeting after which a Teams link will be sent out.
Speakers:
Christopher Townley, Professor of Law, Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London;
Mattia Guidi, Associate Professor of Political Science, Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences, University of Siena;
Mariana Tavares, Cruz Vilaça Advogados, Senior Counsel. Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Research Center of the Institute for Political Studies, Integrated Researcher.
Discussant: Julian Nowag, CCLP Oxford and Lund University
About the event:
In its own words, the mission of the International Competition Network (the ICN) is to advocate the adoption of "superior standards and procedures in competition policy around the world, formulate proposals for procedural and substantive convergence, and seek to facilitate effective international cooperation to the benefit of member agencies, consumers and economies worldwide." ICN members include nearly all competition authorities (NCAs) from around the world (over 100 of them). Since its inception, the ICN has also sought to enrich its discussions and outputs through the inclusion of non-governmental advisors (NGAs), principally large multi-nationals and the legal and economic professions. The ICN is a transnational network, set up by its members, largely without wider state input.
The event presents and explores the book by Christopher Townley, Mattia Guidi, and Mariana Tavares. The book hypothesises that the ICN's formally neutral structures provide powerful influence mechanisms for strong NCAs and NGAs, over the weak; and 'competition experts' over wider state interests, discussing the legitimacy of this from a political and legal theory perspective, analysing the ICN's effectiveness and efficiency, and suggesting ways that the ICN can improve all three. This has important implications for the ICN itself, particularly as it launches its 'Third Decade Project', billed as a full self-evaluation. However, the story told here is also relevant to states and the wider regulatory community, due to the widespread use of transnational networks.