Event Report-March 2006

Training Seminar on “Competition Policy and Law” (CPS.01)
March 20-24, 2006, New Delhi,

Organised by
The CUTS Institute for Regulation and Competition (CIRC)

The training seminar on Competition Policy & Law was held at Qutab Hotel, New Delhi from March 20-24, 2006. This five-day training seminar began with opening remarks by Pradeep S Mehta, Director General, CUTS Institute for Regulation and Competition (CIRC) and John Preston, Competition Policy Consultant, Private Sector Policy Department, DFID, London. This was followed by an inaugural session by R Shyam Khemani, Advisor, Competition Policy Private Sector Development – Vice Presidency, The World Bank Group, Washington D.C., who addressed Competition Policy in Economic Policy Domain.

The objectives of the training seminar were:

Develop analytical capacities to comprehend competition policy and law issues, their perspectives and linkage with the industry and the economy.

Develop an understanding of compliance issues related to competition law among businesses.

Understand the expected role of different stakeholders and groups in order to ensure the competitiveness of the markets and accelerate economic growth.

The training programme covered several areas related to Competition Policy & Law: Basic Concepts & Objectives of Competition Law and Policy, Restrictive Practices, Dominance and market power, Mergers and Acquisitions, Cross-border competition concerns, Competition Issues in Services and the interface between competition law and sectoral regulation, implications of Competition Policy and Law for business, and Comparative analysis of competition laws in USA, EU, South Africa, and India. Besides, there were sessions on case studies relating to restrictive practices, abuse of dominance and merger impact assessment.

The training seminar was designed in a manner to cover all the objectives that it aimed to achieve. Participants had come from countries across the globe including Singapore, Thailand, Mauritius, Vietnam, Cambodia, Oman and representatives of Central Government, many Multinational corporate houses, regulators, civil society organizations and academia. The different backgrounds of participants made the process of learning more interesting as a variety of examples were cited. The duration of sessions provided adequate time for discussions and deliberations giving the process of learning a wider scope. Groups for discussing case studies were divided based on their respective backgrounds. These different groups identified and related with the subject in their own manner enhancing the level of knowledge sharing.

The valedictory of the training seminar was addressed by Jean-Pierre Lehman, Professor of International Political Economy, IMD (International Institute for Management Development), Lausanne and Founding Director, The Evian Group. Jean-Pierre is also a member of the Academic Council of CIRC. Congratulating CUTS for pioneering training on issues related to Competition, Jean-Pierre said that the efforts would go a long way in bringing about clarity on the subject and would be instrumental in forming a base for furthering such issues in government and industry. Jean-Pierre gave away the certificates to the participants. Pradeep S Mehta thanked all for showing their zest towards participating in the seminar and informed them of the future activities that CIRC has planned.

Some highlights of the event are as follows:

Sessions were designed in a way so as to have sufficient time for floor interventions. This increased the level of participation in each session.

Self-assessment forms were given to participants before the start of the seminar. This was designed to assess their understanding of issues relating to competition policy and law. This triggered an interest amongst participants who were keen to know the right answers for questions given in the self-assessment form.

Participants showed an eagerness to learn and found the course content good. The case study approach enabled overall participation.

The objective to build the capacity of the participants on basic issues of competition policy and the law was achieved as the seminar covered all the relevant aspects of competition policy and law.

The course content was apt and fitted the requirement.

List of coordinates of both resource persons and participants, CD carrying all presentations, reading the material, group photograph, self-assessment form were given to all the participants for future use.

Several eminent competition experts and economists from India and abroad participated as resource persons in the seminar. Their presentations included case studies and live examples with which the participants could relate easily. The resource persons included:

Jaivir Singh, Assistant Professor, Centre for Study of Law & Governance, Jawahar Lal University, Delhi, India

Shrawan Nigam, Senior Advisor, CUTS Delhi Resource Centre, New Delhi, India

S Chakravarthy, Advisor/Consultant on Competition Policy and Law, (Former Member, Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission), Hyderabad, India

Manish Agarwal, Policy Analyst, CUTS Centre for Competition, Investment and Economic Regulation, Jaipur, India

John Preston, Competition Policy Consultant, Private Sector Policy Department DFID, London

Francois Souty, Counsel for multilateral affairs (OECD, UNCTAD, WTO) at the Conseil de la concurrence (French Competition Council), Paris

Partha Mukhopadhya, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India

Aditya Bhattacharjee, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

S Sundar, Distinguished Fellow, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, India

Pradeep S Mehta, Director-General, CUTS Institute for Regulation and Competition (CIRC), Jaipur, India

Rajat Kathuria, Professor of Economics, Indian Management Institute, Delhi, India