SEMINARS OF EXPERTS

One of the Centre's priority objectives is to promote and develop scientific research in the field of competition policy. In addition to the internal teachers and researchers, there are also external research partners from the professional, academic and administrative worlds. In this way, the topics on the agenda and possible reforms are monitored. The results of the research are presented and discussed in the framework of "Expert Seminars" to gather the various perspectives before the drafting of the final reports on the subject under study.

The sessions of the Expert Seminar held so far have been the following:

• "Cartels in the agricultural production and marketing sector following the reform of the common market organisations in December 2013"
• "Bid rigging in tenders for the provision of rail services in the public interest"
• "Cartel prevention, competition promotion and compliance programs"
• "Publicly sponsored cartels"
• "Towards the prevention of cartels in public procurement"
• "The standard of proof required. Type of test"
• "Fines on undertakings: imputability of the parent companies and determination of the amount of penalties"
• "In search of the perfect fine: deterrent actions"
• "Claims for damages"
• "Criminalization of the Cartels"
• "Legal value of interpretative communications and guidelines"
• "Judicial review"
• "Investigative powers"
• "Reward programs"
• "Competition authority screening: international best practices"
• "A review of the economic literature on the inner workings of cartels and their economic effects"
• "Authorities responsible for the fight against cartels in Spain (division of powers and functions with the EU, internal distribution with the Autonomous Regions, administrative-judicial implementation, provision of human and material resources)"
• "Typology of hard-core cartels: price fixing, production limitation, market sharing, including bid-rigging and import/export restrictions"
• "The notion of a hard-core cartel"
• "The regional competition authorities on the verge of extinction"
• "Public Intervention in Times of Crisis: The Right to State Aid"
• "The European Commission's new guidelines on abuses of dominant position"
• "Control of concentrations, supervision of regulatory bodies and takeover bids"
• "Public Restrictions on Competition: The Legal Exemption in the New Antitrust Law"
• "Concentrations in the pharmaceutical sector and the analysis of the innovation market"
• "Separation of activities in the electrical sector"
• "State aid and public authorities' regulations in the reform of the Law on the Defence of Competition"
• "Government intervention in the control of economic concentrations"
• "Administrative decentralisation of competition law enforcement in Spain"
• "The application by national judges of the competition law in the draft law"
• "Sanctioning regime and leniency: Comments to the fifth title of the preliminary draft of the Law of Competition Defence"
• "A new institutional framework for the Defence of Competition in Spain"
• "The treatment of creditors' records by Spanish antitrust law"
• "The new European regulatory framework in the telecommunications sector"
• "Dominance test versus substantial lessening of competition test: debate on the criteria for prohibiting a concentration"
• "Leniency: The Policy of Exemption from Fines in Competition Law"

The working papers of the Competition Policy and Regulation Series discussed in these sessions can be downloaded in the publications section.