Wto Competition Panel Yet To Start Work

The working groups set up in Singapore on trade & investment and competition policy are yet to start work, said WTO deputy director-general Anwarul Hoda at a seminar on competition policy held here yesterday.

Hoda added that WTO members are finding it necessary to address competition policy concerns in the sectoral negotiations in services even if the more general debate on the interaction between trade and competition policy is yet to begin.

In the recent telecommunication negotiations, the countries made commitments to apply regulatory principles which encompass competition policy. Those most directly related to competition policy concern interconnection and competition safeguards. The requirement to ensure interconnection with a major supplier is designed to protect rivals from simply being denied competitive access in one way or another for instance by being charged excessively high prices for interconnection.

Competition safeguards oblige members to prevent a major supplier from abusing control over information or engaging in anti-competitive cross subsidisation. The commitment to apply these pro-competitive regulatory principles, he points out, are widely seen as among the most significant of these negotiations.

Outlining some of the practical questions that have been raised outside the WTO in respect of the development of international competition law, he said that one question relates to how the effects on competition of certain actions by governments and private parties would be assessed. There is an increasing tendency to apply what is known as a rule of reason standard on national competition enforcement which means estimating and comparing the welfare costs and benefits of any given situation.

It has also been suggested that a multilateral system based on positive comity might be created. Here a complaint by one country is given serious consideration by the other countrys competition authority and an investigation is conducted if that other country finds that such a course would be in its own interest.

Hoda explained that a number of countries felt the WTO should deal not only with anti-competitive practices but also abuse of trade measures that hinder competition.