about the forum

LIANOS Ioannis
President of the Hellenic Competition Commission

The Athena Competition Law and Policy Forum (Athena Forum) will be a landmark event organized periodically by the Hellenic Competition Commission and the Hellenic Academy of Competition Law and Policy (in different locations in Greece), with the aim first to provide a forum for the discussion of crucial topics/themes among top competition policymakers in the EU and in other parts of the world, and second to enable better coordination and international cooperation between competition authorities from different parts of the world.

The Athena Forum will be organized in the format of a discussion seminar (Chatham House rules), with some introductory presentations to facilitate discussion. The forum will also offer the opportunity to engage the leadership of competition authorities from various parts of the world with high profile researchers on emerging topics in competition law scholarship and progressive thinking to keep us up to date with recent advances in research and ensure a better integration of scientific learning in policy making.

  • Greening Competition Law: Competition Law Enforcement, Climate Change and Sustainability
    Competition authorities around the world are beginning to deal with the sustainable development goals, not exclusively the environmental and climate change protection agenda, but also the social sustainability one, in particular with regard to the transformation and precarity of work in the digital ‘gig’ economy. The current calls for competition law to integrate sustainable development concerns introduce an important level of institutional complexity. The integration of sustainable development goals in competition law enforcement may generate tensions with the dominant rhetoric of “consumer welfare” or “consumer well-being” in competition law, principally for the following two reasons: it will require the consideration of sustainability benefits as efficiencies, and competition decision-makers (competition authorities and courts) would need to adequately tackle the possibility of a sustainability-based trade-off between harm to competition and benefits to sustainable development. This raises important normative and methodological concerns that need to be tackled. Assuming a more open approach towards sustainability benefits under competition law is possible and desired, what forms of quantitative assessment could be applied in practice that take account of the broader social benefits/out-of-market efficiencies as well as benefits for future generations? The panel will focus on these aspects and will engage in discussing the current challenges competition authorities face in integrating sustainability concerns in their work, while not sacrificing the focus on competitive markets.
  • The global regulation of digital ecosystems: ex ante v. ex post approaches/institutional architecture implications – The next steps
    One of the most profound changes in the industrial landscape in the last decade has been the growth of business ecosystems—groups of connected firms, drawing on (digital) platforms that leverage their complementors and lock in their customers, exploiting the “bottlenecks” that emerge in new industry architectures. This has created new asymmetries of power, where the “field” of competition is not the relevant product market, as is usually the case in competition law, but rather the ecosystem of various complementary products and associated complementor firms. These dynamics raise novel concerns over competition. It becomes therefore important to review how ecosystems are addressed within the current scope of competition law and identify the gap in the existing framework of conventional competition law as well as the recent efforts to provide ex ante regulatory remedies for resolution of these problems. We can of course cite the Eu regulatory framework with the Digital Market Act on ex. ante regulation and the provisions of the Data Act on interoperability and data access, which impose specific conditions to “gatekeepers.” A number of other initiatives in European countries have focused on ex post regulation. Similar proposals have been put forward in other jurisdictions. These initiatives raise the issue of the interaction of these new regulatory frameworks with competition law in the context of a specific jurisdiction, but also the interaction of the various competition law and ex ante regulation regimes at the global level, in particular as most of these regimes focus on the same Big Tech companies. The panel will take a global perspective and will focus on the challenges in instituting and implementing a regulatory framework for ecosystems that would preserve their dynamism and innovation while engaging with the competition and other economic power concerns they raise in several jurisdictions. What could be the next steps for dealing with the increasing regulatory complexity at the global level in digital?
  • Macroeconomic conditions, macroeconomic tools and competition law: developing a “macro” perspective for competition law enforcement?
    The economics of competition law have been merely based on microeconomic models and overall thinking. “Competition economics” – is based in industrial organization, a sub-discipline of neoclassical price theory, which, despite the existence of various “schools” and intellectual traditions, agrees on the importance of markets and is classified in the micro-economic, as opposed to the macro-economic, “field” of economic thought. Macro-economic conditions and goals (e.g., growth, inflation) have nevertheless often interfered with competition law enforcement. The main link in today’s Industrial Organization models between competition and growth is the relation between competition and dynamic efficiency. Current discussions on the interaction of competition law with industrial policy also raise similar issues, particularly in the context of the value co-creation that takes place in modular global business ecosystems. Finally, there has been some recent debate over the role of competition law and policy as a policy tool to tame inflation. The focus on broader competition conditions, not only at the level of a relevant market, but also those of an economic sector or industry, may also illustrate the influence of macro-thinking in modern competition analysis. Of particular interest are recent macroeconomic models that aim to explore the prevalence and impact of the rise of common ownership in the economy and the “oligopoly problem” that may result from it, as well as possible effects on labour. The session will engage with the way competition authorities may take such “macro-perspective” on competition law enforcement and what could be the insights that they may gain from engaging with this research.

  • Food price hikes, global food value chains and the resilience of the global food system: implications for competition law enforcement
    As the FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 159.7 points in March 2022 and 158.5 points in April 2022, the highest level it has ever reached (with the food prices being higher almost 30% than the same period last year), the issue of high food prices has been a major economic and social concern globally. The resilience of the global food system has also been affected by the significant challenges of the pandemic, the resulting logistics crisis and the recent war in Ukraine. This presents a new reality for competition authorities which have placed increasing attention in the rise of economic concentration in the various segments of the food value chain with the revenues of the top food companies worldwide soaring. Food companies do face legitimate increased costs and unique shortages, but these aren’t eating into their profits. This has raised concerns for some competition authorities, which have so far engaged with the bargaining power of some companies at some segments of the food value chain, but are increasingly interested in the way corporate consolidation may help competitors raise prices together, taking advantage of shoppers’ inflation expectations to charge a little extra and to maintain high price levels in the future. The pandemic and the recent food shortages affecting certain regions of the world following the war in Ukraine raise the issue how a long-term food supply chain resiliency plan could accommodate competition law concerns. At the same time, we have witnessed important technological innovations in the food sector with the use of new technologies (CRISPR and gene editing technologies, digital/smart agriculture, the development of e-commerce in groceries) and new business models in the production and distribution of food. The panel will explore the challenges emerging from the new geopolitical situation, the pandemic, and sustainability goals for competition law enforcement (and competition policy) in the food sector and the way competition authorities may cooperate in order to limit the negative effects of the current world food price crisis.

  • The Limits of Collusion in Competition Law: Invitations to Collude, Price Signaling, Algorithmic Collusion
    Most jurisdictions have a rule against anticompetitive agreements (in the following ‘collusion rules’). These collusion rules are extended beyond obvious agreements to encompass other forms of coordination, such as ‘concerted practices’ or ‘concerted action’. The prevailing opinion is, however, that even these extensions require more than mere tacit collusion in the economic sense, that is, raising the price in parallel beyond a non-collusive equilibrium price, mere tacit collusion based on an intelligent adaptation to the observed behaviour of other firms is not caught by antitrust law unless there are reciprocal reassurances through some form of at least implicit two-way communication or plus factors that indicate coordination between the firms. This requirement for reciprocal reassurances results in the ‘oligopoly problem’ – in oligopoly markets with a sufficiently high market transparency, the firms may achieve market outcomes that are as bad as a hardcore cartel, but antitrust law cannot reach it for lack of an ‘agreement’ (even in the broader sense). Given that oligopolistic markets are, in real life, the norm rather than the exception, this formalistic approach may have substantial implications for social welfare. Occasionally, commentators have argued that the rules against anticompetitive agreements should be reinterpreted so as to catch all tacit collusion. However, this approach has been criticized: instead of allowing firms to compete freely on the best available intelligence, an approach prohibiting all collusive outcomes regardless of prior concertation would essentially require price regulation and price control – and not, as is the case today, only for some discrete regulated markets, but for all markets. This is neither practically feasible, nor would it be what we understand as free competition. There is a wide range of oligopoly markets in which market transparency is insufficiently high to collude tacitly in the absence of any further contacts between the oligopolists, but which are still sufficiently transparent to achieve collusive outcomes where some additional information is communicated. As soon as these further contacts take the form of reciprocal reassurances, even the prevailing approach finds an infringement of the collusion rules in the form of an ‘information exchange’. However, this still leaves those cases in which the participants can reach collusive results based on the unilateral disclosure of information, for example, because the firms are primarily facing a coordination problem. Addressing such cases of unilateral disclosure (through some form of price signalling) does not present the same problems as the radical solution of prohibiting all tacit collusion. The panel will engage with the need, or not, to revise the current competition law focus on the communication theory of collusion, also in view of the possibility of algorithmic collusion, and the added value of specific provisions concerning invitations to collude and/or unilateral disclosure of information about future pricing (price signalling), under specific circumstances.

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the programme

DAY 1 - June 28, 2022

21:00
Dinner (all participants)

DAY 2 - June 29, 2022

09:45

Welcome

LIANOS, Ioannis, President of the Hellenic Competition Commission
BENETATOU, Kelly, Vice-President of the Hellenic Competition Commission

10:00 - 11:20

Greening Competition Law: Competition Law Enforcement, Climate Change and Sustainability

Moderator: SNOEP, Martijn, Chairman, Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM)

Panelists (in alphabetical order):

  • INDERST, Roman, Goethe University Frankfurt
  • ROSENBOOM, Nicole, Oxera
  • SCHINKEL, Maarten-Pieter, University of Amsterdam
11:20 - 11:40 Break
11:40 - 13:00

The global regulation of digital ecosystems: ex ante v. ex post approaches/institutional architecture implications – The next steps

Moderator: GUERSENT, Olivier, Director General, DG Competition, European Commission

Panelists (in alphabetical order):

13:00 - 14:20 Lunch
14:20 - 14:40

Keynote

KELLY SLAUGHTER, RebeccaCommissioner, US Federal Trade Commission

14:40 - 16:00

Macroeconomic conditions, macroeconomic tools and competition law: developing a “macro” perspective for competition law enforcement?

ModeratorBONAKELETembinkosiCommissioner, Competition Committee of South Africa

Panelists (in alphabetical order):

  • ANDREONI, Antonio, University College London 
  • JENNY, Frederic, President, Competition Committee, OECD
  • PELLEGRINO, Bruno, University of Maryland's Smith School of Business
  • PITELIS, Chris, University of Leeds
16:00 - 16:10 Break
16:10 - 17:30

Food price hikes, global food value chains and the resilience of the global food system: implications for competition law enforcement

Moderator: JENNY, Frederic, President, Competition Committee, OECD

Panelists (in alphabetical order):

  • FOX, Eleanor, New York University School of Law
  • MOREIRA, Teresa, UNCTAD
  • REY, Patrick, Toulouse School of Economics
  • ROBERTS, Simon, University of Johannesburg
17:30 - 17:40 Break
17:40 - 19:00

The Limits of Collusion in Competition Law: Invitations to Collude, Price Signaling, Algorithmic Collusion

Moderator: DOSHI, Hetal, Deputy, Assistant Attorney General, US Department of Justice

Panelists (in alphabetical order):

  • ECONOMIDES, Nick, Leonard N. Stern School of Business
  • FIRST, Harry, New York University School of Law
  • HARRINGTON, Joseph, University of Pennsylvania
  • WAGNER VON PAPP, Florian, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg
19:30
Greek Sunset Group Photo (Cape Sounio)
20:00
Dinner (optional at the cost of the participant)
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the participants

(in alphabetical order)
ANDREONI, Antonio University College London 
BADILA, Daniela Romanian Competition Council
BARTHELMÉ, Pierre Competition Council of Luxemburg
BENETATOU, Kelly Hellenic Competition Commission
BERNAERTS, Inge European Commission
BIBA, Denar Albanian Competition Authority
BONAKELE, Tembinkosi Competition Commission of South Africa
CAFFARRA, Christina CRA
CENTELLA TIERNO, Maria Luisa Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission
CHIRITOIU, Bogdan Romanian Competition Council
CHRISTODOULOU, Loukia Commission for the Protection of Competition of the Republic of Cyprus
CHRÓSTNY, Tomasz Poland Office of Competition and Consumer Protection
CORDEIRO MACEDO, Alexandre Brazilian Competition Authority
CSERHALMI, Zsuzsa European Commission
DERSZNIAK-NOIRJEAN,  Martyna Poland Office of Competition and Consumer Protection
DOSHI, Hetal US Department of Justice
ECONOMIDES, Nick Leonard N. Stern School of Business
ESTANQUEIRO, Marco Competition Council of Luxemburg
EVENSEN, Harald EFTA Surveillance Authority
FIRST, Harry New York University School of Law
FOX, Eleanor New York University School of Law
GAIKIS, Juris Competition Authority of Latvia
GEVORGYAN, Gegham Competition Protection Commission of the Republic of Armenia
GODFREY, Jeremy Competition and Consumer Protection Commission of Ireland (CCPC)
GUERSENT, Olivier European Commission
HARRINGTON, Joseph University of Pennsylvania
INDERST, Roman Goethe University Frankfurt
JACOBIDES, Michael London Business School
JENNY, Frederic Competition Committee, OECD
JERMSTEN, Rikard Swedish Competition Authority
KAMEL ZAYED, Jamil Jordanian Competition Directorate in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Supply
KAPURAL, Mirta Croatian Competition Agency
KARALIC, Amir Competition Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina
KELLY SLAUGHTER, Rebecca US Federal Trade Commission
KESERAUSKAS, Sarunas Lithuanian Competition Authority
KÜLE, Birol Turkish Competition Authority
LIANOS, Ioannis Hellenic Competition Commission
MANGION, Godwin Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority
MATOS ROSA, Margarida Portuguese Competition Authority
MATVOZ, Andrej Slovenian Competition Authority
MLSNA,  Petr Czech Office for the Protection of Competition
MOMTAZ, Mahmoud Egyptian Competition Authority
MOREIRA, Teresa UNCTAD
NAUMOVSKI, Vladimir Commission for Protection of Competition of the North Macedonia
NEJEZCHLEB, Kamil Czech Office for the Protection of Competition
NENKOVA, Julia Bulgarian Commission on Protectiom of Competition
NIKOLOVA, Valentina Commission for Protection of Competition of the North Macedonia
PÁLSSON, Páll Gunnar Icelandic Competititon Authority
PELLEGRINO, Bruno University of Maryland's Smith School of Business
PERIĆ, Nebojša Commission for Protection of Competition of the Republic of Serbia
PETROPOULOS, George MIT Sloan School of Management & Bruegel
PIFFAUT, Henri Autorité de la concurrence
PITELIS, Chris University of Leeds
RAHHOU, Ahmed Competition Council of the Kingdom of Morocco
REY, Patrick Toulouse School of Economics
RIGO, Csaba Balazs Hungarian Competition Authority
ROBERTS, Simon University of Johannesburg
ROSENBOOM, Nicole Oxera
RUSTICHELLI,  Roberto Italian Competition Authority
SCHINKEL, Maarten-Pieter University of Amsterdam
SCWEITZER, Heike Humboldt University, Berlin
SEPE, Gianluca Italian Competition Authority
SIDERI, Christiana Commission for the Protection of Competition of the Republic of Cyprus
SNOEP, Martijn Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets
SØREIDE, Tina Norwegian Competition Authority
STEENBERGEN, Jacques Belgian Competition Authority
TONNAZI, Alessandra Italian Competition Authority
TORINO, Gianluigi Italian Competition Authority
URMONAITE,  Irma Lithuanian Competition Authority
VAGOGNE, Daphné European Commission
VERNET, Anna European Commission
WAGNER VON PAPP, Florian Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg
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testimonials

(in alphabetical order)

BONAKELE Tembinkosi
Commissioner
Competition Commission of South Africa

DOSHI Hetal
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General
US Department of Justice

FIRST Harry
Professor
School of Law, New York University

GEVORGYAN Gegham
President
Competition Protection Commission of Armenia

GUERSENT Olivier
General Director
DG Competition, European Commission

IOSSA Elisabetta
Commissioner
Italian Competition Authority

JENNY Frederic
Chairman
OECD Competition Committee

MOREIRA Teresa
Head of the Competition and Consumer Policies
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

NAUMOVSKI Vladimir
President
Commission for Protection of Competition of North Macedonia

PETROPOULOS Georgios
Researcher
MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, MIT Sloan School of Management

PIFFAUT Henri
Vice-President
French Competition Authority

PITELIS Chris
Professor
Head of the Department of International Business, University of Leeds

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Organisational Committee

Directorate for International Relations & Communications

CHAMILOU Mary
Head of
Directorate for International Relations & Communications

GKOURLOUMENOS Kostas
Head of
Digital Communication & Public Relations Unit

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the venue

GRECOTEL CAPE SOUNIO AT ATHENS RIVIERA
capesounio

67 km Athens-Sounio, 19500, Sounio

Visit the venue's website for more info

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contact

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Mary Chamilou | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., tel. +302108809143, mob. +306977973472
Kostas Gkourloumenos | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., tel. +302108809222, mob. +306977979714
Aggeliki Simitopoulou | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., tel. +302108809119
Ioannis Rizos | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., tel. +302108809233
Fryni Kominaki | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., tel. +302108809233

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