PRESS RELEASE

2010 merger workshop of the international competition network - ICN, THE GLOBAL ANTITRUST NETWORK - HELD BY THE AUTORITÀ GARANTE DELLA CONCORRENZA E DEL MERCATO IN ROME. NUMEROUS FOREIGN COUNTRIES REPRESENTED

On the 3rd, 4th and 5th of November 2010, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del mercato hosted the 2010 Workshop on mergers at its own headquarters.  Participants included the primary member countries of the International Competition Network (ICN), a network founded through the collaboration of more than sixty Antitrust Authorities across the world.
The ICN's tenth anniversary is coming up in 2011, giving special meaning to this year's workshop.  
The event consisted of a number of parallel plenary sessions that addressed the question of how to control mergers and concentrations, and included the participation of official antitrust specialists from the international network and NGO representatives.
The first day of this year's Workshop focused on international-level competition policies and their evolution in terms of the control and evaluation of concentration maneuvers. The discussion covered procedural as well as substantive dimensions, with a special focus on investigative activities and surveys. The Workshop offered an opportunity to take stock of the ICN Merger Working Group's last ten years of efforts and to discuss and debate new goals for the future.  The second day included a series of parallel sessions on merger guidelines and recommendations, using a hypothetical case study as a focal point for discussion.  Different phases of the proceeding process were compared and contrasted, ranging from initial notifications to formal objections and the enforcement of remedies.  
Speakers from various participating authorities are taking part in a roundtable discussion entitled "Public Policy and Merger Review" scheduled for today as a distinct event that ties in to the Workshop's main topic by focusing on the interaction between public policy and merger analysis.  
In addition to the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato's own speakers, presentations were also made by numerous technical experts and directors from other Antitrust Authorities across the world, American representatives of the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, specialists from various European Authorities (Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Turkey, Poland, Netherlands, Portugal and others) and representatives from Canada and Japan, South Africa, Australia and Mexico as well as Russia, Korea and Vietnam. A number of NGO representatives were also in attendance (including legal and professional studios).  

Rome, 05 November 2010