The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will serve on the interim steering group of the newly launched International Competition Network. This was announced in New York today at the peak annual international anti-trust conference held at Fordham University.
The launch of the new ICN was announced by top competition law officials from the United States, the European Union and other major countries.
"The ICN will provide a venue where senior competition law officials from developed and developing countries will work to reach consensus on proposals for procedural and substantive convergence in competition law enforcement", ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said today.
"In today's global economy it has become increasingly apparent that there is a need for a stronger and more broadly based international network of competition law authorities including both developed and developing countries to address unresolved procedural and substantive issues directly affecting multi-jurisdictional competition law enforcement. For example, more than 60 countries now review mergers, often using different procedures. Also international cartels may affect many countries simultaneously.
"The interim steering group will consist of Australia, Canada, the EU, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Zambia.
"The ICN will be made up of competition law enforcement agencies.
"Although primarily an organisation for enforcement agencies, ICN will seek input from international organisations such as the OECD, the WTO and UNCTAD and from the private sector including legal and economic experts, business people as well as from academics and consumers.
"The network will develop non-binding recommendations for consideration by individual enforcement agencies and their national governments. It will have no rule-making or decision-making authority and when it reaches consensus on particular recommendations it will be left to governments to implement them voluntarily.
"Its work is seen as complementary to the work of the OECD", Professor Fels said.