17 November 2017
A Federal Cartel Office official has said the antitrust community should stop talking about the “dark side” of big data.
16 November 2017
Two lawyers have described new amendments to Germany’s merger thresholds as “unclear” and “problematic”.
17 November 2017
The head of competition and consumer policy at Germany’s ministry of economics and energy has said he does not believe a change in the law is needed to deal with algorithms – but policymakers will need to decide whether algorithms colluding tacitly will require a “gap to be filled”.
16 November 2017
A German judge has said new disclosure rules have made it more complex and time-consuming to deal with antitrust cases.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Düsseldorf
Martin has significant experience in German, European and international competition law and has been involved in major merger cases and many national and international cartel cases, both inside and outside of the courtroom.
Thorsten Käseberg
Head of Competition and Consumer Policy, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, Berlin
Dr. Thorsten Käseberg, a lawyer and economist, has been serving as a civil servant since 2007 in different functions in the area of economic policy. He currently heads the unit in charge of competition and consumer policy in the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. He is also an official of the European Commission (on leave), where he served in the Directorate-General for Competition (2009-2011). Dr. Käseberg has lectured at Humboldt University Berlin and published in particular on economic and regulatory issues, including the book Intellectual Property, Antitrust and Cumulative Innovation in the EU and the US (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2012). He was educated at the University of Bonn, Humboldt University Berlin, the London School of Economics and New York University.
Professor, Director, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), University of Düsseldorf
Professor, Chair of Civil Law, Commercial and Economic Law, Competition and Insurance Law, University Tübingen
9.00: Welcome coffee and registration
9.30: Chair's opening remarks
Martin Klusmann, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Düsseldorf
9.45: New law, new lessons: Germany updates for the digital and damages age
Significant amendments to Germany's Act against Restraints of Competition came into effect in June, which assist in obtaining cartel damages; extend the liability for fines to parent companies; add a merger filing threshold based on transaction value; specify that free services are still a market subject to competition law; and empower the Federal Cartel Office to conduct sector inquiries.
Initial experience with the new law: what are the pitfalls in practice?
Disclosure and the passing-on defense after the damages directive: do they work, and how?
Closing the "sausage gap": is parental liability even constitutional?
Keeping German start-ups open for (takeover) business: what are the effects of the new merger threshold and market definition rules?
Moderator:
Petra Linsmeier, Gleiss Lutz, Munich
Panel:
Gerhard Klumpe, Presiding Judge, District Court of Dortmund
Stefan Thomas, Professor, Chair of Civil Law, Commercial and Economic Law, Competition and Insurance Law, University Tübingen
Silke Möller, Glade Michel Wirtz, Düsseldorf
Alex Petrasincu, Hausfeld, Düsseldorf and Berlin
10.55: Coffee break
11.15: Around the world in 50 investigations: dealing with multiple authorities simultaneously
More than 50 jurisdictions have adopted leniency programmes and are actively investigating and prosecuting cartels. Competition policy has benefitted but companies also bear increasing burdens.
Document production, data protection and transfers of evidence: how to protect a client and comply with EU rules while pushing paper across borders
Double jeopardy and harmonisation of leniency: do proliferating leniency programmes pose an opportunity or a threat?
Who is liable and can you escape existing liability?
Moderator:
Tobias Klose, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Düsseldorf
Panel:
Daniela Seeliger, Linklaters, Düsseldorf
Thilo Klein, Compass Lexecon, London, Düsseldorf and Berlin
Frédéric Louis, WilmerHale, Brussels
12.30: Networking lunch
13.30: Keynote address - "The challenges of artificial intelligence for competition policy – collusion by pricing algorithms"
Thorsten Käseberg, Head of Competition and Consumer Policy, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, Berlin
14.10: Following the leader in follow-on litigation: German, US and other models
When a 2004 study commissioned by the European Commission claimed that levels of private enforcement through damages claims in Europe were very low, Germans declared this was "simply false" with respect to their country's courts, where hundreds of such claims were filed each year. Follow-on damages claims in Germany long predate the EU damages directive, and in the wake of the vehicle emissions scandal, local politicians are promising an even more liberalised regime for consumers to be compensated.
Trucks and Diesel: will public outrage at cartels cause Europeans to shed their doubts about litigation, American-style? And will that include the ability to coordinate claims across EU courts, as US federal courts have done with multi-district litigation?
Follow the money: how is all this litigation to be financed: through contingency fees, assignment of claims routed through US or UK firms, opt-in class actions or a new mechanism?
Going Dutch: will the Netherlands become the new favoured location for EU damages actions, as its legal system provides for collective claims and settlements with extra-territorial reach, and its courts bless a claims assignment model?
What is the appropriate role of competition authorities?
Moderator:
Nadine Herrmann, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Hamburg and Brussels
Panel:
Konstantin Ebinger, Charles River Associates, Munich
Martin Seegers, CDC Consulting, Brussels
Susanne Zuehlke, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Brussels
15.25: Coffee break
15.50: Stance on the Big Data and competition interface
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has attracted praise from pro-enforcement observers around the world for the European Commission's willingness to take on tech companies. Yet Germany has quietly gone even further, as the Bundeskartellamt pursues Facebook for potentially using its dominance to extract user data, and the economics ministry proposes a digital antitrust enforcer. Meanwhile, the US antitrust agencies under Trump have taken a sceptical attitude toward the idea that there is anything new here.
What separates the new Big Data from the data that advertising-supported platforms historically had about their users and used to attract advertisers?
Defining Big Data as asset, platform, market and more
Infinity and beyond: if data isn't scarce, can it be economically relevant?
Hey, big spender: the use of data for online price discrimination
Privacy and portability: how can big data be sold, shared or treated as an essential facility while complying with privacy regulations?
Moderator:
Martin Sura, Hogan Lovells, Düsseldorf
Panel:
Michael Dietrich, Herbert Smith Freehills, Düsseldorf
Fred Wandschneider, CEG Europe, Düsseldorf
Justus Haucap, Professor, Director, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), University of Düsseldorf
Sebastian Wismer, General Policy Division, Bundeskartellamt, Bonn
17.05: Chair's closing remarks
Martin Klusmann, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Düsseldorf
17.15: Close of conference