Competition and competitors

At the time the merger GE/Honeywell was blocked by the Commission, a slogan started to circulate: we Americans protect competition, you Europeans protect competitors.
A few years later, the European Commission finds that Microsoft infringed article 82, the CFI upholds the decision and some people try to recycle that slogan once again.

But something in the air has changed.
Immediately after the judgment, not less than the Economist ("Brussels rules OK") depicted European regulators as the ones playing a role in the global economy, while Uncle Sam stays at the window.

Now, discussing the Intel issue, also the NYT has contrasted the dismissive behaviour of the FTC towards big companies with the actions of European, Japanese and Korean authorities.

Is it not time for a new slogan?

Finally public

That "famous" Net Neutrality paper of ours, the one I mentioned in a couple of previous posts, is finally public. "Network Neutrality in the EU" is now an official TILEC Discussion Paper (number 2007/030) and is also available on SSRN http://ssrn.com/abstract=1018326.

Meanwhile, we managed to present it again at the IvIR (Instituut voor InformatieRecht) in Amsterdam and at the Conference of the Canadian Association of Law and Economics in Toronto.

International Gambling Conference in Tilburg

On 15 November 2007 the third international colloquium of Tilburg University will be hosted, with the title ‘The Regulation of Gambling and the Role of Crime and Addiction’. Speakers include François Trucy of the French General Assembly and Erik Vagnhammar of DG Internal Market.

For information and the registration procedure, please see http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/tilec/events/folder2007.pdf .