ICN: Recommended Practices on the Assessment of Dominance and Substantial Market Power adopted

This happened at the International Competition Network 2008 Conference, Kyoto. The Reccomended Practices have now been published on the ICN website.

FTC supports broader jurisdiction over non-profit

Testifying before Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on proposed ‘Federal Trade Commission Reauthorization Act of 2008, the Commission supported repealing FTC Act's exemption for certain non-profit entities, such as in health-care, see the Prepared Statement.

Comisión Nacional de la Competencia launches investigation on football television rights

In particular, the Spanish competition authority intends to investigate if agreements between media operators and football clubs have exclusionary effects. See CNC press release

UK Competition Commission: market investigation on the supply of groceries

A highly informative, 269-page Study.
Features that (still) prevent, restrict or distort competition:
- barriers to entry leading to highly concentrated local markets;
- buyer power, when "grocery retailers transfer excessive risks or unexpected costs to their suppliers".

New Antitrust Law in China

The new Antimonopoly Law (AML) will go into effect in August 2008. See a first comment by NERA consultants Fei Deng and Gregory Leonard. Cfr. also Lorenz, Moritz, The new Chinese Competition Act, In: European competition law review ; 29(2008), 257-263

Bundeskartellamt: Abwägungsklausel in der Fusionskontrolle angewendet

Laut einer Pressemitteilung der deutschen Wettbewerbsbehörde überwiegen bei der Übernahme von sieben Tochtergesellschaften der Orion Cable durch KDG die Vorteile für den Wettbewerb die Nachteile. Im Übrigen konnten die Zusammenschlussbeteiligten nachweisen, dass aufgrund des Zusammenschlusses Verbesserungen der Wettbewerbsbedingungen auf den Märkten für Breitbandanschlüsse (DSL) und für schmalbandige Anschlüsse eintreten werden.

Issues for Academic Authors, Institutional Repositories, Open Access Journals and End-Users

Paper by Brian Fitzgerald and Anthony Austin, presented at the Open Repositories Conference 2008. Commercial publishers to co-exist with open access publishing.

BITKOM Leitfaden zur Patentierung computerimplementierter Erfindungen

Der Bundesverband Informationswirtschaft, Telekommunikation und neue Medien (Bitkom) hat einen 40 Seiten umfassenden Leitfaden erstellt, der IT-Erfindern bei Patenanträgen helfen soll.