New episode of LawPod: developing countries experience with extraterritoriality in competition law

New episode of LawPod: developing countries experience with extraterritoriality in competition law
Photo: http://lawpod.org/?name=2022-02-01_developing-countries-competition-law.mp3 02.02.2022 676

The new episode of LawPod, weekly podcast of the Law School at Queen’s University Belfast, discusses the cross-border, transnational application of competition law with special focus on the experience of developing countries and economies in transition.

In the end of 2021 the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development hosted a launch of the Report on Developing Countries’ Experience with Extraterritoriality in Competition Law Enforcement. The goal of the project was to fill in the gap in our understanding of developing countries’ experience with the extraterritorial application of competition law. The project was conducted by UNCTAD in cooperation with the Law School of Queen’s University Belfast and QUB academic – Dr Marek Martyniszyn. The authors recently have published the official project Report. In the LawPod experts discuss the broader consequences of the document and the future development of the concept of extraterritoriality in the competition law.

The episode was hosted by Ms Teresa Moreira, Head of UNCTAD Competition and Consumer Policies Branch. She was joined by Dr Marek MartyniszynProf. Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre; Prof. Imelda Maher, Sutherland Full Professor of European Law, University College Dublin; Prof. Qianlan Wu, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham.

Dr Marek Martyniszyn stressed the importance of extraterritoriality concept and its critical necessity in a globalized world. The principle of extraterritoriality implies the spread of normative acts of a law-making body outside the territory of its jurisdiction.

“Our study is quite interesting because we tried to analyze the current situation in developing countries, that is why our research focuses on diverse groups. Moreover, even among developed states, many of them have different levels in completion law development”.

Prof. Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, shared his expertise in the field of BRICS competition law policies. He pointed out to the fact that BRICS alliance is unique in its nature as it differs from traditional models of cooperation – international organizations and regional unions.

“The mandate of BRICS is unique because it is coming from transnational relations. And here we can directly trace the connection with the concept of extraterritoriality. This gives the BRICS countries an opportunity to unite and jointly influence the situation. Russia itself is not a big economy in comparison to other international actors such as China, however, the country cannot remain on the sidelines when issues such as Bayer-Monsanto deal are being decided. These decisions will have long-lasting economic and development effects”.

Prof. Qianlan Wu described the particularities of the Chinese attitude towards competition law and extraterritoriality principles. Business conduct has proven to provide a negative effect on the economy of China, and in 2007 the country adopted the Anti-Monopoly Law. It was enacted for the purpose of preventing and restraining monopolistic conducts.

“The challenge we have to think about is the evidence of competition law breaches. For many institutions it is difficult to prove the damaging conduct. In this scenario extraterritoriality helps to control the conduct and develop the bilateral cooperation with other countries. At the moment China faces other challenges in the effective exchange of information between different authorities, compatibility with national law and resolution of different competition regimes”.

In the end of the episode Alexey Ivanov addressed the problem of unequal relations between authorities and corporations. He highlighted the fact that authorities have more resources and a different access to information. “We have to facilitate the exchange between authorities and private corporations, and avoid monopolization”, – concluded Alexey.

Here you can download the full version of the podcast.  

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