Our full-day conference offers insights into recent developments in competition law and economics from a German and European perspective.

The sessions are aimed at practitioners, enforcers, and academics from the fields of legal and economics.

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Our experts Linda, Nadine and Alia share their knowledge on Germany’s dealings with antitrust law and updated the economist’s perspective of GCR’s Enforcer Hub. With detailed contributions direct from over 100 competition enforcement agencies around the world, GCR’s Enforcer Hub profiles both the legal and economic functions of the agencies, alongside enforcement history, strengths, and priorities.

What’s it about?

The implementation of the 10th amendment of the German Act against Restraints of Competition (ARC) – also referred to as the “ARC Digitalisation Legislation” – on 19 January 2021[1] extended the enforcement power of the German Competition Authority with respect to digital platforms. Subsequently, the German Competition Authority decided that Alphabet/Google, Meta/Facebook and Amazon do indeed possess “paramount significance for competition across markets” (PSICAM) and, thus, are subject to Germany’s extended abuse control. Against that background, the German Competition Authority opened several proceedings against the leading online platforms, forging ahead in the race of European competition authorities to regulate the behaviour of Big Tech companies and to ensure fair competition (ie, a “level playing field”) in the digital economy. In the article, we will summarise the opened proceedings, which range from, for example, potentially insufficient choice options for consumers regarding Google’s data processing terms to the assessment of Apple’s tracking rules for third-party apps.

Read the article

We are pleased to announce the promotions of Elżbieta Głowicka and Anselm Mattes to Director in Berlin office.

Since joining E.CA Economics in 2013, dr. Ela Głowicka has provided economic advice in competition law matters in many European jurisdictions. She advised clients in private litigation cases about damages from cartels, vertical agreements and abuse of dominance. In the area of State aid, Ela has extensive expertise in the ex-post evaluation of the European State aid rules. She also supports merging parties in merger proceedings.

Before becoming an economic consultant, Ela gained a first-hand insight into competition policy enforcement as a member of the Chief Economist Team in DG Competition at European Commission. She holds a doctoral degree from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin for the thesis on State aid control applied to bailouts.

Dr. Anselm Mattes has more than 15 years of experience in economic consulting with a focus on applied empirical economics. Since 2006, Anselm has provided economic advice to a large range of clients, including the European Commission, several Federal Ministries in Germany and many private clients, ranging from start-ups to global players.

Before joining E.CA Economics, Anselm worked as a Manager and Senior Researcher at DIW Econ, the consulting firm of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), and as an Economist at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IAW) in Tübingen.

Anselm holds a Doctoral degree in Economics from University of Tuebingen as well as a Master degree in Economics from the University of Hohenheim.

Congratulations!

We are proud to share the exciting news with you. E.CA Economics is growing and getting stronger. We start the new year celebrating the promotion of our exceptional colleagues:

Promotion to Principal: Alia Schweiger
Promotion to Manager: Michael Kaiser
Promotion to Senior Economist: Nicola Heusel and Zachary Herriges

Congratulations!

We are pleased to share that WWL Germany 2023 has once again singled out Hans W. Friederiszick, Rainer Nitsche and Simone Kohnz – our E.CA Economics directors – as having a first-class reputation as competition economists. We always strive to perform strongly and thus respond to the trust of our clients, colleagues and peers.

Who’s Who Legal says about us:

Hans Friederiszick garners plaudits from market respondents for his well-established practice which sees him advise clients on a range of cartel and merger disputes.

Rainer Nitsche has amassed a wealth of experience navigating clients through complex competition matters, particularly when it comes to cartels and abuse of dominance.

Simone Kohnz is a leading figure in the German market thanks to her first-rate work testifying on a wide range of competition matters and multijurisdictional experience.

Many thanks for the cooperation and support!

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Are you a master student at the Toulouse School of Economics? Are you passionate about competition economics? Then get ready, mark November 25th in your calendar and join the E.CA Economics experts at the TSE career fair.

During the TSE career fair, you will:
9.30 Meet our E.CA team on site and have a chat
14.45 Learn about E.CA‘s vision for research-based consulting and why we focus on fostering team spirit and empathetic project management

One day ahead, November 24th, E.CA’s senior economist Vedika Hegde and economist Raphaël Poncet will also lead a workshop on ex-post evaluation of a number of vertical mergers in the UK to the Economics and Competition Law students at the TSE.

E.CA’s experts will contribute to the annual high-profile case panels at the Association of Competition Economics (ACE) conference on 17-18 November in Lisbon. The organisers have put together great program and sessions ahead, where you can find our director Alexis Walckiers as a moderator on “Dutch investigation into retail and wholesale markets for fixed telecommunication services.” And our associate principal Alia Schweiger as a discussant along with Marcel Balz and Heiko Karle on how to define local markets for grocery retail stores based on the controversial sale of the REAL stores in Germany to Kaufland and Edeka.

Check the programme here: https://bit.ly/3hLCTLl
Find out more about the conference: https://bit.ly/3T9NoF0

If you are studying Economics and you are looking for a career where you could apply your theoretical and empirical skills to the real world problems, come and join us at the Barcelona School of Economics Career Day 2022 on October 21st.

Programme:
9.20 Learn about E.CA‘s vision for research based consulting and why we focus on fostering team spirit
10.45 Broaden your network with experts in the field with our senior economists Ignacio Balaguer López and Niklas Gebhard.
15.15 Join our case study on Heineken and a pub chain in the UK

Place: Ciutadella Campus in Barcelona