BECCLE Competition Policy Conference

The Bergen Center for Competition Law and Economics is proud to announce the first annual BECCLE competition policy conference.

20.04.2015 - Astri Kamsvåg

The conference takes place at NHH on 23 and 24 April 2015.

The conference will have keynote speakers, invited sessions, and contributed sessions (where researchers have submitted their research papers). Both lawyers and economists will present their research on competition policy.

Professor Lars Sørgard, one of the initiators of the conference and member of the organising committee in Bergen, says: "We are overwhelmed by the interest in the conference. 80 academics and practitioners have registered to participate, and the number of papers submitted was so high that we had to reject some of them. Still, our shortlist contains more than 30 papers".

"As far as we know, this is the only academic conference on competition policy in the Nordic countries", Lars Sørgard adds. "We want to make this an annual event here in Bergen".

Keynote speakers

David Bailey (King's College London), Joe Harrington (University of Pennsylvania) and Patrick Rey (Toulouse School of Economics) are the keynote speakers at the conference.

Professor Joe Harrington from the University of Pennsylvania will give the conference's opening keynote. His research focuses on collusion and cartels, with the objectives of understanding observed collusive practices, developing observable markers of collusion, and designing competition policy to detect and deter collusion. His research is on the interface of theory and practice and has been presented before competition authorities throughout the world.

On the second day, Professor Patrick Rey from Toulouse School of Economics will give his keynote which is entitled "Cooperation vs. Collusion: How Essentiality Shapes Co-operation". Patrick Rey has been Honorary Doctor at NHH since 2011. His research focuses on vertical restraints and competition policy, and his keynote speech is based on joint work with his colleague Jean Tirole who received the Nobel prize in economics in 2014.

Front row from the left: Lars Sørgard in the BECCLE management, Thibaud Verge (CREST, Paris), Frode Steen (Chair of the BECCLE Board), Kurt Brekke (Sørgard's successor). Back row from the left: Tim Wyndham (PhD student) and Simen Ulsaker (PhD student). (Photo: Hallvard Lyssand)

Cartels and verticals

In addition to the three keynote speakers, there will an invited session on cartels led by Frode Steen (NHH and BECCLE) and an invited session on verticals with Greg Shaffer (University of Rochester and BECCLE), Thibaud Verge (CREST and BECCLE) and Daniel O'Brien University of Indiana).

BECCLE

Bergen Center for Competition Law and Economics (BECCLE) was established in 2011, and it is a center jointly owned by Norwegian School of Economics and the University of Bergen. BECCLE is a meeting place for economists and lawyers interested in competition policy questions.