In this study, we derive economic trade-offs of between the vertical organisation of rail transport and efficiency. For this purpose, we reviewed the academic and industry literature, screened available market statistics, assessed the experience from exemplary European countries and other network industries, and carried out interviews with industry experts.

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We are proud to announce that our expertise in providing economic analysis in competition cases is again recognised by clients and partners, who have contributed with their reviews to the Competition Economists Report of Who’s Who Legal.

This year WWL recommends ten of our colleagues at different levels of seniority based in our offices in Berlin, Brussels, London, and Munich.

• Hans W. Friederiszick and Rainer Nitsche received the prestigious Global Elite Thought Leader ranking in Competition Economics, a testament to their exceptional expertise and leadership in the field.
• Bas Dessens, Thomas Hildebrand, Simone Kohnz, Lars-Hendrik Röller, Alexis Walckiers, and Rafael Aigner have been honored with the Recommended ranking, solidifying their continued excellence in Competition Economics.

We are also delighted to celebrate the first-time recognition of Linda Gratz and Anselm Mattes in the WWL report, where they are commended as strong team leaders with profound economic knowledge.

Congratulations to our recommended colleagues, and to the wider team with whom they worked! And warm thanks to everyone who send their positive feedback: we very much look forward to working with you this year again!

Click here for the full review of the Competition Report.

LinkedIn post.

On the 5th of July our director Hans W. Friederiszick chaired a special policy session on this year’s CRESSE – Competition and Regulation European Summer School and Conference.

This session covered current developments and challenges relating to the topic “Ecosystem Competition: Access Charges, Fairness, Interoperrability”.

It was a great exchange with the internationally recognised experts and panelists Marc Bourreau (Télécom Paris), Giuseppe Colangelo (Università degli Studi della Basilicata), Jacques Cremer (Toulouse School of Economics), Eliana Garces (Analysis Group), Simon Loertscher (University of Melbourne) and Keith Waehrer (Secretariat Economists).

CRESSE is a network of academics and professionals, practicing in competition or regulatory authorities, consultancies and legal practices, with an interest in competition policy and sectoral regulation. It was initiated by Prof. Yannis Katsoulacos in 2005. E.CA has the honour of being a long-standing partner and we are very grateful for this cooperation.

The European Commission has published the report “Exploring Aspects of the State of Competition in the EU” on June 24 2024.

The report was prepared by a consortium of firms led by Lear and comprising E.CA Economics, Fideres, Prometeia, the University of East Anglia, and Verian. Our report has contributed to the Commission’s own report entitled “Protecting Competition in a Changing World”, also published on June 24 2024.

The chapter we contributed defined “Global Superstars” as the world’s 50 most profitable companies for five 5-year periods between 1998 and 2022.

Click here to read more.

At the beginning of June our directors Linda Gratz and Hans W. Friederiszick gave a presentation at the 2024 Hal White Antitrust Conference. This event was organised by our US partners Bates White Economic Consulting.

Our directors spoke about bargaining power in the bilateral negotiations between carriers and large Content and Application Providers (CAPs) over IP data transport fees.

In a recent legal dispute between Meta and Telekom Deutschland GmbH, Meta stopped paying fees while continuing to use a dedicated direct network connection into Telekom’s network, with both parties accusing each other of abusing a dominant position.

In this context, our company analysed the relative bargaining power of carriers and CAPs in the bilateral negotiations over fees for IP data transport.

We concluded that carriers technically cannot deny access to their network. Furthermore, large CAPs can deliberately cause congestion at interconnects into a carrier’s network, thereby temporarily deteriorating the connection quality in the network. Consequently, a significant imbalance in the relative bargaining power in favour of large CAPs can arise.

The dispute between Meta and Telekom could become a precedent for establishing whether CAPs must pay for using dedicated direct connections to carrier’s networks and contribute their share to the necessary investment into Next Generation Networks.

We thank Bates White for inviting us to speak at the conference. Thank you also to our clients for the opportunity to share our analysis and engage in such an important discussion.

This year E.CA Expert Forum took place at the Fondation Boghossian (Villa Empain) in Brussels on 30 May.

You will find a summary of the panel discussions regarding “Self-preferences and AI” and “The role of competition policy in the transformation of the European economy” below. We also summarised our key take aways from the closing remarks by Olivier Guersent.

A big thank you to the speakers, participants and for everyone else who contributed to the success of our event.

Click here for a summary of the panel discussions and photos.

E.CA Economics has won the Antitrust Writing Award. Our “EU publication on State aid: E.CA supports DG Competition with revision of Railway Guidelines” was awarded in the category “cross-border”. Congratulations to our directors Elzbieta Glowicka and Anselm Mattes and all other involved colleagues. The study was conducted by a consortium lead by E.CA and included LEAR, Sheppard Mullin, UEA and the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds.

Click here if you want to read more details about the study and the results.

The new edition of the European Competition Law by Prof Helmut Schröter, Robert Klotz, and Bernhard von Wendland was published recently.

Our director Hans W. Friederiszick and associate principal Rafael Aigner contributed the chapter “The role of economic analyses in the enforcement of European antitrust law”.

This reference work for competition law covers the entire field of antitrust and merger law with all procedural rules, enriched with commentaries and interpretations by relevant experts.

The fact that we were able to participate in this standard work is a nice proof of how much our expertise is recognised and appreciated in the industry.

The book (ISBN 978-3-8487-6325-2) can be ordered via this link.