Foreword and Acknowledgements

This book is the result of close co-operation between EU antitrust officials and academic economists. As a result, it is neither a comprehensive overview of the economic literature on the telecommunications industry, nor a detailed presentation of antitrust principles and caselaw for that sector. Instead, it aims to address the integration of economics with the factual specificities of the telecommunications industry in order to further enhance the treatment of antitrust cases in the sector. This aim is reflected in the fact that half of the contributions are from EU officials (mainly from the antitrust unit in charge of the telecommunications industry), while the other half are from academic economists. As a result, the reader will find, in each chapter, both an economist’s perspective and the view of a Commission case-handler. The opinions expressed by Commission officials are the personal view of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Commission. We hope that this work will help foster the dialogue between outside academics and insider experts in Europe and contribute to a convergence of legal and economic approaches to EU antitrust policy. This work documents a conference, ‘The economics of antitrust and regulation in the telecommunications sector’, held in Brussels on 16 September 2002. That conference was the culmination of a one-year project in which officials from the telecoms unit of the European Commission’s DG Competition and a group of high-level European economists worked together on a number of key issues in the telecommunications sector. The topics, namely market definition, collective dominance, access to networks, and allocation of scarce resources, were chosen on the basis of the key problems arising out of the antitrust cases pending at the time. The aim of the project was to incorporate modern economic theory and tools into day-today antitrust casework. To that aim, a number of meetings took place, which were devoted to discussion of the economic ‘toolbox’ available on the various issues and of the main characteristics of the relevant cases. These meetings then progressively led to a closer interaction between advisers and case-handlers and for a dialogue more tailored to specific cases. The last meeting took the form of an open conference in which the experts highlighted the main theoretical and empirical findings relating to the above-mentioned topics, while DG Competition officials presented specific situations where this economic analysis was particularly relevant. The conference was introduced by Commissioner Monti and structured around five thematic sessions and a closing roundtable, chaired by Philip Lowe, Michael Katz and Jean Tirole. Each session consisted of two presentations, given by an academic expert and a DG Competition official in turn, followed by a discussion with comments and questions from the floor (consisting of some fifty invited competition lawyers, consultants, economists and academics as well as Commission staff).