The OECD held a workshop in Paris on 9 March 2017 to provide capacity building to competition officials that have already or will be involved in performing market studies.

Many competition authorities have indicated that market studies are an essential tool for accomplishing a variety of objectives, including preparing for enforcement action in a market, identifying competition problems due to regulation, or addressing consumer complaints in a transparent and thorough manner.

However, selecting markets for study when there are no clear indications of a specific competition law violation can be challenging (particularly without consumer complaints or specific references from government bodies), and prioritising markets when many options exist may not be straightforward.

Programme

The workshop gave participants the opportunity to explore:

• how market study objectives influence the selection and prioritisation of sectors to be studied
  
  
• strategic considerations to be taken into account
  
  
• existing techniques for identifying candidate sectors
  
  
• market study scoping
  
  

Speakers  

The workshop provided an opportunity for authorities to share some lessons learned, and to hear from our distinguished panel of experts: 

• Amelia Fletcher (Professor of Competition Policy, Norwich Business School and Non-Executive Director, UK Financial Conduct Authority),
  
  
• Thibaud Vergé (Professor at ENSAE, Researcher at CREST Paris and Senior Academic Consultant to Charles River Associates); and 
  
  
• Miguel de la Mano (Executive Vice President, Compass Lexicon). 

Read the Summary of the workshop.

MEETING DOCUMENTS

Summary of the Workshop

Agenda

CONTACT

For enquiries on the subject of this workshop please contact james.mancini@oecd.org.

DOCUMENTS AND LINKS

2017 Roundtable on market study methodologies for competition authorities 

OECD work on Market Studies and Competition

2016 OECD Global Forum on Competition discussion on the role of market studies as a tool to promote competition 

2016 Scoping note on future OECD work (version française)

2015 Note on the OECD Survey on market definition (version française)

2008 Best practice roundtable on market studies

Topics

Abuse of dominance & monopolisation

Cartels & anti-competitive agreements

Enforcement practices

Evaluation of competition interventions 

‌International co-operation

‌Liberalisation & intervention in regulated sectors

‌Mergers

Pro-competitive policy reforms

Key materials, Tools & Guidance

Best practice roundtables

Calendar of activities

Competition assessment toolkit

Fighting bid rigging in public procurement 

Recommendations

Reports by the Competition Committee

Reports by competition agencies

Work in progress

Global Relations

About global relations

Hungary centre

Korea centre

Global Forum on Competition