Benefits and challenges of regional competition agreements

 29 November 2018  Paris  

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2018 OECD GLOBAL FORUM ON COMPETITION EXPLORED BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF REGIONAL COMPETITION AGREEMENTS

Regional competition agreements (RCAs) hold great potential for both developed and developing jurisdictions by promoting convergence in competition laws and instruments, ensuring effective and efficient cross-border enforcement, and/or by supporting young authorities in their efforts to create a competition framework coherent with international standards. However, serious obstacles to the success of RCAs can undermine the harvesting these benefits.  

In November 2018, the Global Forum on Competition held a roundtable discussion to explore the potential benefits, obstacles and challenges of Regional Competition Agreements. Participants examined the approaches of the different geographic regions that have adopted a regional competition framework (including regional competition provisions and a regional competition authority) in order to strengthen their competition law and policy in their pursuit of increased regional integration. The session specifically focused on RCAs between three or more jurisdictions (so excluding bilateral agreements) that are located in the same geographic region and have established regional competition provisions, as they usually offer deeper levels of integration and a higher degree of co-operation on competition enforcement than bilateral agreements.

The discussion was supported by an inventory of RCAs developed by the OECD that was shared in advance of the session.

Mor BAKHOUM Bio ‌ 
Affiliated Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition

G. Deniz BOTH 
Independent Researcher (PHD from King's College London and LL.M from University of East Anglia)

Mario A. UMAÑA Bio ‌ 
Lead Trade and Competition Specialist, Integration and Trade Sector, Inter-American Development Bank. Presenting "Regional Competition Arrangements: The Case of Latin American and the Caribbean".  

» Call for contributions

» Read the OECD Background note

» Read the Inventory of RCAs 

» Summaries of contributions

» Summary of discussion

» Executive summary

» Watch a video about this discussion

» Watch a video about the other topics under discussion in Nov 2018

» OECD Competition Youtube channel