Projects

Project 1 | Project 2 | Project 3

Project 2

Competition and consumer laws in a global market

This project contains five interrelated projects. Research will explore the impact of globalisation from a competition and consumer policy perspective for the relatively small and isolated Australian market. Given the domination of the United States and European Union in international competition regulation and debates surrounding it, a key concern is what role does and should Australia play? What would be the costs and benefits of its potentially catalyzing/educating role for the majority of countries, especially in the Asia-Pacific region that have no, or underdeveloped, competition regimes?

Competition tests and globalisation
Jurisdiction
International cartels
Product safety regimes in a global economy
Intellectual property

Competition tests and globalisation

Purpose and benefits

The project will enhance the learning and knowledge acquisition within the ACCC on competition tests and globalisation. The learning is required because how the market is defined is changing in the light of globalisation where competition from outside the jurisdiction may be as, if not more, significant than competition within. This makes the evaluation more dependent on information from rivals unless there is effective cooperation with authorities in other jurisdictions. While globalisation may be significant, the existence of sub-markets (of which Australia may be one) becomes important – as does the test for barriers to entry. With international mergers Australia can be only one of 16-20 authorities dealing with the matter.

Methodologies

A preliminary workshop or part of a larger conference.

Expected outputs

Presentation on the outcomes of the workshop and academic publications. Recommendations for further research also may arise from the preliminary workshop.

Jurisdiction

Purpose and benefits

This project aims to enhance the learning and knowledge acquisition within the ACCC on protection of consumers from off shore companies. For such issues it is best to resolve the jurisdiction issue before the matter gets to court. The matter is one of enforcement as well as asserting jurisdiction in the first place. The project will help answer question such as: can the consumer secure rights to repairs and refunds where the company is offshore? What legal regime might allow it?

Methodologies

Trade associations and firms will be interviewed to see how they envisage protection (and goodwill) being established (and maintained).

Outputs

A discussion paper and workshop on ‘Applying Australian Laws to International Companies’ would be conducted leading to academic publications.

International cartels

Purpose and benefit

This project will contribute to the evaluation of the ACCC’s performance in international cartel matters and to its learning and knowledge acquisition in relation to the following related issues: the most appropriate level at which to deal with international cartels; jurisdiction (note the extraterritorial application of US antitrust laws); and substance. The answer may lie in a multilateral response either formally through the WTO or the less formally through meetings of competition experts organised e.g. by the Global Competition Network, where common ground can be explored between competition regulators. If a cartel is international, then the ACCC may be one of many national competition regulators investigating. To facilitate investigation, bilateral agreements on information exchange have been agreed particularly between the US and numerous other states. Australia may learn from this sort of bilateralism in particular the operation of the EU/US agreement. Whatever the form of international cooperation between competition regulators, it is important for Australia to retain the power to act locally where a cartel has a greater adverse effect on the Australian economy than elsewhere. What type of international regime will allow for this balance between international cooperation and effective local enforcement?

Methodology

Literature work and interviews with key figures in international bodies to establish what are currently regarded as key issues. The method will involve at least one case study and compare responses by national authorities involved.

Expected outputs

Academic papers and a book on the internationalisation of competition norms.

Product safety regimes in a global economy

Purpose and benefits

This project will contribute to the ACCC's learning and knowledge acquisition in relation to the following issues: Are internationally inconsistent product safety regimes workable in a global economy? This is a regulation issue with a key question: who would set and police international standards? The Centre could look to the EU example where much standard setting is common throughout the EU and is effectively private standard setting within a loose legislative framework. In other words, standardization can be industry driven, with appropriate consumer and government input and monitoring. The EU regime effectively creates a hierarchy of standards under which vertical legislative rules at EU or national level take precedence, followed by EU or national private standards and only in the absence of such specific standards do enforcement officers and the courts have the broader discretion to determine whether products comply with safety standards against the criteria of general safety requirements which balance risk and practicality in reducing risks. The bias of the EU regime is towards harmonization through EU legislation and privately set standards and it would be instructive to compare this with the more diffuse pattern in APEC. Greater diversity in standards in a selection of the APEC standards could yield a variety of different results in theory. A race to the bottom might be observed as countries competed to attract mobile manufacturing firms with lower standards, or there might be evidence of international policy entrepreneurship through NGOs and international organisations creating a pattern of de facto harmonisation. A third possibility is that the capacity to operate diverse standards results in some policy innovation with higher standards than the norm across some product fields. Differing standards can act as form of trade protectionism and hence the matter is at the interface of trade/competition and consumer policy. The Hong Kong approach to toy safety standards, which recognises EU, US and ISO standards explicitly in its law may be an interesting model to examine in its practical operation.

Methodologies

The EU examples would be reviewed where much standard setting is common throughout the EU and is effectively private standard setting within a loose legislative framework. The bias of the EU regime is towards harmonisation through EU legislation and privately setting standards. The project would compare this with the more diffuse pattern in APEC. The review will include the Hong Kong approach.

Expected outputs

A conference paper to an appropriate major international conference (preferably linking policy makers and academics) and academic articles in e.g. a policy journal and a longer an international refereed journal.

Intellectual property

Purpose and benefits

The purpose of this project is to enhance the learning and knowledge acquisition within the ACCC on the balance between consumerism and intellectual property protection. It has an economic element and a legal element. An economist needs to set out the ongoing uncertainty in the literature as to the relative merits/demerits of, for example, parallel importing. Legally, the issue has been ‘live’ in the EU context for the last few years and remains unresolved with in the European courts. The issue is not whether there is a conflict but more how to balance invention with competition and choice. What criteria should be used and in what order of priority? The legal environment beyond narrow competition and consumer concerns are relevant – notably intellectual property rules themselves but issues such as standard setting are also significant. The center will need to disaggregate the various intellectual property rights, have regard to technological development and the key issue of reciprocity which was highly influential in the EU context.

Methodologies

A workshop on intellectual property protection and competition will be convened involving lawyers and economists with an expertise in competition and/or IP.

Expected outputs

A collection of papers on intellectual property and competition law will be produced and made available to the ACCC. There will also be academic publications.

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