Competition Regulation And Convergence

The telecommunications industry has experienced dynamic changes over the past several years, and those exciting events and developments are reflected in the chapters of this volume. The Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (TPRC) holds an unrivaled place at the center of national public policy discourse on issues in communications and information. TPRC is one of the few places where multidisciplinary discussions take place as the norm. The papers collected here represent the current state of research in telecommunication policy, and are organized around four topics: competition, regulation, universal service, and convergence. The contentious competition issues include bundling as a strategy in software competition, combination bidding in spectrum auctions, and anticompetitive behavior in the Internet. Regulation takes up telephone number portability, decentralized regulatory decision making versus central regulatory authority, data protection, restrictions to the flow of information over the Internet, and failed Global Information Infrastructure initiatives. Universal service addresses the persistent gap in telecommunications from a socioeconomic perspective, the availability of competitive Internet access service and cost modeling. The convergence section concentrates on the costs of Internet telephony versus circuit switched telephony, the intertwined evolution of new services, new technologies, and new consumer equipment, and the politically charged question of asymmetric regulation of Internet telephony and conventional telephone service.

The international dimensions of competition law and policy are most often examined at the level of substantive law. In this legal area both intentional and spontaneous assimilation and harmonization trends can be recognized, which manifest themselves e.g. in comparable approaches to combating particularly harmful restraints (so-called "hardcore cartels"). However, the complex terrain of enforcement law has been mainly ignored up to date. Are there common approaches in this field as well? How are the various competition laws linked with each other in respect to procedural norms? This book conceptualizes "International Competition Enforcement Law" against the backdrop of these issues and at the level of comparative law. The ciphers "cooperation" and "convergence" will serve as the two principle ideas for this book.

Scholars have observed a gradual convergence of national European cartel laws towards EC competition law in recent years. Furthermore, most writers ascribe an important role in this convergence process to the influence of and pressure from the European Community. This is a remarkable conclusion considering the diversity that could be noticed only decades ago and the fact that the European Community has taken no direct legal action to harmonise national competition laws. These observations give rise to two questions: First, what is the extent of this convergence process and on which aspects do differences persist? Secondly, what have been the driving forces behind this development, and especially, what has been the role of the European Community in it? The study concentrates on three countries, namely Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, which represented different models only some decades ago. The book aims at providing more insight into the development of competition policy in the EC and into the adaptation of national regulatory policy to EC law in general. This book is of interest to lawyers, political scientists, and economists working in the field of competition policy, as well as to scholars interested in European integration in general.

Using case studies to investigate the design of competition law systems, this is the first major analysis of the extent to which each national, regional, or international system fulfils global norms including due process rights for litigants, reasonable expedition in adjudication, and knowledgeable decision-making.

Contributing to a convergence of legal and economic approaches, The Economics of Antitrust and Regulation in Telecommunications integrates economic theory into current EU antitrust policy within the sector. The book addresses the role of competition and regulatory policies on a number of key issues in telecommunications, such as market definition, collective dominance, access to networks, and allocation of scarce resources.

"Regulatory competition within Europe and internationally, operates in several fields with different outcomes. This book offers a comparative legal and economic analysis of corporate, securities and competition law, exploring the reasons behind such differences. The books conceptual framework covers the most relevant drivers of competition, including legal actors incentives, channels of competition and governance design. It shows how the different drivers and institutional designs are shaping competitive interactions, drawing relevant conclusions for both general and field specific regulatory policy. Providing a comparative analysis of regulatory competition in three legal fields, this book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics in law, economics and political science, as well as policymakers legislator, regulator, judiciary at both national and European levels."--Publisher

Introducing Diversity in EU Merger Control /Yvan Desmedt & Philippe Laconte --Summary of Recent U.S. Enforcement Decisions in Communication/Entertainment Industry Transactions /Ilene Knable Gotts --Competition and Regulatory Aspects of Convergence, Takeovers and Mergers in the Communications and Media Industries /Thomas Janssens & Joep Wolfhagen --Brazil's Antitrust and Regulatory Reviews of TIM/Telefónica: Lessons Learned /Ana Paula Martinez & Alexandre Ditzel Faraco --Changes in the Global Telecommunication Market and Its Implications in Brazil /Gesner Oliveira & Wagner Heibel --Mergers in the Canadian Communications Sector: An Increasingly Curious Situation /Lorne Salzman --In Search of a Competition Doctrine for Information Technology Markets: Recent Antitrust Developments in the Online Sector /Jeffrey A. Eisenach & Ilene Knable Gotts --The Internet of Things in the Light of Digitalization and Increased Media Convergence /Anna Blume Huttenlauch & Thoralf Knuth --Dynamic Markets and Competition Policy /Bernardo Macedo & Sílvia Fagá de Almeida --Recent Antitrust Developments in the Online Sector/ Federico Marini-Balestra --Mobile Payments and Mobile Banking in Brazil: Perspectives from an Emerging Market /Márcio Issao Nakane, Camila Yumy Saito & Mariana Oliveira e Silva --Internet of Things: Manufacturing Companies Industry and Use of 'White Spectrum': Ghost in the Machine? /Kurt Tiam & Andy Huang --Competitive Aspects of Cloud-Based Services /Fabrizio Cugia di Sant'Orsola & Silvia Giampaolo --Standard-Essential Patents and US Antitrust Law: Light at the End of the Tunnel? /Leon B. Greenfield, Hartmut Schneider & Perry A. Lange --IP and Antitrust: Recent Developments in EU Law /Miguel Rato & Mark English --Antitrust Cases Involving Intellectual Property Rights in the Communication and Media Sector in Brazil /Barbara Rosenberg, Luis Bernardo Cascão & Vivian Terng --Patents Meet Antitrust Law: The State of Play of the FRAND Defense in Germany /Wolrad Prinz zu Waldeck und Pyrmont --The Role of Privacy in a Changing World /Chris Boam --The Transatlantic Perspective: Data Protection and Competition Law /Pamela Jones Harbour --Power over Data: Brazil in Times of Digital Uncertainty /Floriano de Azevedo Marques Neto, Milene Louise Renée Coscione & Juliana Deguirmendjian --Big Data and the Cloud: Privacy and Security Threats of Mass Digital Surveillance? /Lyda Mastrantonio & Natalia Porto --Net Neutrality Regulation: A Worldwide Overview and the Chilean Pioneer's Experience /Alfonso Silva & Sebastian Squella --Net Neutrality in Singapore: A Fair Game /Chung Nian Lam --Internet Regulation in Brazil: The Network Neutrality Issue /Lauro Celidonio Gomes dos Reis Neto, Fabio Ferreira Kujawski & Thays Castaldi Gentil --The New Brazilian Internet Constitution and the Netmundial Forum /João Moura --The Brazilian Telecom Regulatory Scenario and the Proposals of the Internet Law /Regina Ribeiro do Valle --Competition in the Brazilian Telecommunication Market /rMaximiliano Martinhão, Guido Lorencini Schuina, Haitam Laboissiere Naser & Leonardo Fernandez Zago --A New Horizon for Competition Advocacy in Brazil /Adriano Augusto do Couto Costa, Marcelo de Matos Ramos & Roberto Domingos Taufick --Overlaps and Synergies between Regulators in the Brazilian Telecommunications Market /Marcelo Bechara de Souza Hobaika & Carlos M. Baigorri --The New Competition Law in Brazil and the New Framework for Merger Analysis in Telecom /Carlos Emmanuel Joppert Ragazzo & Cristiane Landerdahl de Albuquerque --Chapter 31: Regulatory Policy Round Table: A Dialogue between Telecommunications and Antitrust Authorities /Denis Alves Guimarães.