OECS Officials Receive Competition Training – Antigua

Participants from every OECS country, consisting of officials from the relevant Ministries, some of whom were senior Trade and Consumer Affairs officials, and also, lawyers attended a two-day workshop on Competition presented by Professor Frederick Jenny, Tina Kondo and Desroy Reid.

In the first of the workshop’s well-presented and received sessions, participants were introduced to the fundamentals of competition law, including its definition and relevant concepts along with a grounding in basic economic terms.

Ms. Kondo then drew upon selected U.S. cases and her experience in enforcement of antitrust law in her presentations on Horizontal Agreements. This session was followed by a presentation by Ms. Taimoon Stewart on provisions in EC & Regional Laws.  Ms. Kondo and Ms. Stewart then delivered engaging presentations on various aspects of Abuse of Dominance in which the presenters explored topics such as market power, monopolies, vertical restraints, EC Competition Law and OECS draft law. Mr. Desroy Reid then built upon these issues in his presentation on the Economics of Competition.

Other topics covered over the two-day workshop included Merger Control Regulation, Merger Laws in CARIFORUM, Institution Design and Institution Building, Cartels, Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights, Conducting a Market Study, Cross Border Issues and the Effects Doctrine, International Competition Law, and Bi-lateral Cooperation Agreements between Competition Authorities.

Professor Frederick Jenny then delivered an online presentation on Bid-Rigging in Public Procurement. The participants were overwhelmingly in praise of Professor Jenny’s presentation and the discussion that followed, and many of them plan to show the video of the session, uploaded on the Moodle page, to officials involved in public procurement.

Participants praised the effectiveness of this workshop, particularly its participatory nature, and noted that they learned a lot.

The Training Course is an output of the CARIFORUM/EU Capacity Building Project which is funded under the 10th EDF.  The project’s overall objective is to support CARIFORUM Member States’ beneficial integration in the world economy. Specifically, it seeks to help member states to implement their EPA commitments in the areas of Competition, Procurement and Customs and Trade Facilitation. A consortium led by Equinoccio (Spain) which includes the London School of Economics, SGS and Maastricht School of Management is implementing the project.

Published On: April 10, 2016|