UNCTAD RBP CODE, KNOWN AS THE SET, ENDED HERE TUESDAY

10:15 AM Nov 22, 1995

UNCTAD RBP CODE, KNOWN AS THE SET, ENDED HERE TUESDAY
The Conference, attended by representatives from 72 countries and chaired by Venezuela's Eduardo Garmendia, called upon all States to strive to implement all provisions of the Set to ensure effective application, and recommended that UN General Assembly convene the fourth Review Conference in Geneva in year 2000.

The United States however expressed reservations on the next review conference since, in its view, this depended on the outcome of UNCTAD-IX.

The Conference, which met from 13-21 November, was attended by competition authorities and experts, was the Third Review Conference on the Set (the Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Principles and Rules for the Control of Restrictive Business Practices) which was negotiated under UNCTAD auspices and adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1980 as a non-binding code.

The Set provides for a 5-yearly review and an annual meeting of intergovernmental group of experts on RBPs to monitor its implementation and for exchange of experiences and information among national authorities.

The Review Conference recommended that the UN General Assembly rename the intergovernmental expert group on RBPs as "Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Law and Policy".

The resolution noted that UNCTAD-IX, to be held next year in South Africa is to consider in an integrated way the inter-relationship between trade and competition policies and policy measures, as well as relations between competition and enterprise development.

The IGE, it decided, should embark on an exercise mapping out and strengthening the common ground among States in the area of competition law and policy in identifying RBPs affecting economic development of developing countries as well as shedding light in areas where common ground is more difficult because of differences among economic theories or among competition laws and practices.

The decision was in the light of the worldwide trend towards adoption or reform of competition laws and development of national competition laws and policies since the Set was adopted 15 years ago.

The focus of the IGE exercise, to be undertaken upon request from member States and in collaboration with national and regional competition authorities, is to identify the 'common ground', namely, the broad similarities in approaches followed on different competition law and policy questions by governments.

The exercise to shed light on areas where common ground is more difficult to identify is to include:

* role of competition law and policy in strengthening and improvement of economies of developing and other countries and, in particular the development of the business community,

* identifying appropriate measures to help countries that might be hampered by RBPs, taking into account economic globalization and liberalization of economies of developing and other countries,

* interface between competition law and policy, technological innovation and efficiency,

* competition law and policy treatment of vertical restraints and abuse of dominant positions,

* competition policy treatment of exercise of IPRs and licensing of IPRs or know-how,

* analysis of differences in scope of competition laws and policies in individual sectors, in the light of the process of economic globalization and liberalization ,

* analysis of effectiveness of enforcement of competition laws, including enforcement in cases of RBPs having effects in more than one country.

The Conference called upon governments to make efforts to increase participation of experts and delegates from developing countries, the LDCs and economies in transition, both in future sessions of the IGE and at the fourth review conference, and asked UNCTAD to review its technical cooperation activities and provide assistance to countries for capacity building in area of competition law.

The resolution also decided that future IGE meetings should include atleast three days of informal multilateral consultations among delegates on competition law and policy issues, with advance consultations to agree on the subject to be covered and notifying governments atleast a month in advance.

As part of the consultations, the IGE was requested to undertake a comprehensive informal exchange of views on experiences of developed and other interested countries on RBP issues and cases, and also organize small workshops with participation of a few experts on specific issues in this area.

Governments were also invited at future consultations in meetings of IGEs to clarify scope and application of their competition laws and policies so as to improve mutual understanding about the substantive principles and procedures of competition law and policy, taking into account the relevant provisions of the Uruguay Round agreements.

In this exercise, the resolution said, governments might wish to discuss: how the Set might be better implemented, particularly those provisions of the Set which have not been so far adequately implemented; the competition policy implications at national, regional and international levels of globalization and liberalization; techniques and procedures for detecting and sanctioning collusive tendering, including international cartels and other anti-competitive practices; strengthening of information exchange, consultations and cooperation in enforcement at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels; and application of competition laws and policies to State activities, such as regulation of State enterprises, State monopolies, natural monopolies and enterprises with exclusive rights granted by States.

Francois Souty of France, who chaired the final plenary, said the Review Conference had sent a strong message to UNCTAD-IX and UNCTAD remained the only forum in the world offering the possibility to carry out useful and efficient work in development of instruments and institutions on competition policies.

Speaking for the African Group, Egypt's Osama El Magdoub, said success of the Conference should provide the driving force needed towards full implementation of the Set by all countries. The identification of common ground among all countries should be a prelude for reaching a consensus on legally-binding multilateral disciplines for competition.

Henri Reynaud of France praised the work of UNCTAD's IGE and said the large participation in its work, including by developing countries, was proof of its interest and relevance. UNCTAD-IX, he said, would no doubt maintain the IGE in order to help developing countries to build an efficient market economy and further integrate themselves into the world economy.

Tang Yufeng of China said UNCTAD should play a grater role in promoting control of RBPs, while Michail Faleev of Russia said trade and competition should be a priority area of work for UNCTAD and both UNCTAD and WTO should build their work on the basis of the complementarity.