April 3, 2008, 14.00-18.00 hrs
Venue: OPTA
Many products and services are produced with common costs and
sold in bundles. It is often difficult - and sometimes impossible
- to
allocate total fixed costs of production to the various components
of a commodity bundle. It is often rational, both for a dominant
supplier and for its rivals, to offer substitutes and complements
with implicit cross-subsidization. For a regulator, offerings
above incremental costs but below total average costs may appear
predatory - which they certainly can be, but not always.
The complexity of pricing tests for commodity bundles makes it
difficult to assess the competitive nature of observed pricing
strategies, creating a risk of errors in intervention. To correctly
assess the predatory nature of pricing, or attempts of price-squeeze,
for example, requires a good understanding of the component relations,
the structure of common costs and the ability of efficient rivals
to replicate specific product bundles. This often requires advanced
economic modelling and sophisticated empirical analysis.
In this workshop, ENCORE brings several leading practitioners
together to discuss the latest developments in pricing tests for
commodity bundles from both a legal and an economic point of view.
Presentations:
For the presentation of Andrea Coscelli, click here
For the presentation of Patrick Greenlee, click here
For the presentation of Peter Eijsvoogel, click here
Practical information
Speaker biographies
Program
14.00-14.15 Welcome by Maarten Pieter Schinkel (ENCORE, chair)
14.15-15.00 Patrick Greenlee (US Department of Justice): "Assessing
the Anticompetitive Effects of Multiproduct Pricing" (based
on joint work with Dennis Carlton and Michael Waldman)
15.00-15.45 Andrea Coscelli (CRA International): "Predatory
prices and price > squeeze when the dominant player and its
rivals sell different product bundles"
15.30-16.00 Coffee break
16.00-16.45 Peter Eijsvoogel (Allen & Overy): "Legal
issues and practice of pricing tests for bundles in a regulated
environment"
16.45-17.15 Discussion with the floor
17.15-18.00 Drinks
No fee will be charged. Please note however that we can only admit
a limited number of participants, so early registration is advised.
If
you wish to attend please click here to register online.
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone within your
organization or outside who would be interested in attending.
Practical information
Date: Thursday April 3rd 2008
Time: 14.00 - 18.00 hrs
Location: OPTA
Zurich Toren
Muzenstraat 1
Den Haag
Room number: 505
Route
description
Patrick Greenlee earned a doctoral degree in economics
from
Northwestern University in 1995, and has served as an economist
at the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division ever since.
In 2000-2001, he was the Victor H. Kramer Foundation Fellow at
the University of Chicago Law School. His research has appeared
in the Journal of Industrial Economics, European Economic Review,
International Journal of Industrial Organization, Antitrust Bulletin,
and elsewhere. He has recently taught in the economics PhD programs
at the University of Maryland and the University of Virginia.
Andrea Coscelli is a vice president at CRA International
in London.
Since finishing his PhD at Stanford University in January 1998,
he has been working full-time on antitrust cases, including merger
notifications in the EU, the UK and other member states, and economic
analysis for clients involved in Article 81 and Article 82 proceedings
with a special focus on the broadcasting and pharmaceutical industry.
He has presented expert evidence to a number of antitrust and
regulatory agencies, including the European Commission, the Office
of Fair Trading, the Competition Commission in the UK, the Italian
Telecom and Media Regulator, and the Dutch Telecom and Media Regulator.
Dr. Coscelli is a regular speaker at European antitrust conferences
and a co-founder (with John Fingleton and Patrick Rey) of the
Association for Competition Economics (ACE) in 2003.
Peter Eijsvoogel is a partner at Allen & Overy LLP's
Amsterdam
office. He focuses on government regulation of business. He is
a
leading specialist in the field of communications law, representing
both national and international clients in regulatory, litigation
and
contractual work. As much of his work pertains to the legal aspects
of price regulation, interconnection and access questions, he
has been involved in most communications related litigation on
these issues in the Netherlands over the past fourteen years.
His practice also involves work for clients in the financial services
and healthcare sectors. During 2004 and 2005 he was Co-Chair of
the Communications Law Committee (Cm) of the International Bar
Association. Between 2003 and mid 2006 he combined his practice
with the position of Managing Partner of Allen & Overy's Amsterdam
office.
