News & Events

Looking forward to new insights, lively discussions and great networking: the 2021 Annual ACE conference is coming up on the 18th and 19th of November 2021. Hans W. Friederiszick will chair a panel on “Telecoms Mergers – the Judgement by the General Court on CK Telecoms”, and Alexis Walckiers will chair a panel on “The role of Google Ads as a source of traffic for websites”. Please join us!

The ACE (Association of Competition Economics) conference will take place in Barcelona, hosted by Massimo Motta at the Barcelona School of Economics. The conference will be an in-person event. The keynote speech will be presented online by Jean Tirole.

More information

Draft VBER and hybrid platforms: one size fits all? Join our associate principal Alia Schweiger in an online talk on “Vertical Block Exemption Regulation & Guidelines on Vertical Restraints: From dual distribution to dual pricing”, together with Bettina Leupold, Sophie Moonen and Stephanie Pautke, organised by Women AT. The webinar will take place on Wednesday, 17 November 2021, 13.30-15.00 CET and is open to all interested professionals, regardless of gender.

Register now

European economics consultancy E.CA Economics is strengthening its ranks with the UK-based microeconomist Alena Kozakova. Alena’s focus is competition and economic regulation economics established in public authorities and consulting. As a director and member of E.CA’s leadership team, she will be responsible for business activities at the London office and elsewhere.

Download Press Release here

The latest research of our director Hans W. Friederiszick, our manager Juri Demuth, and Steffen Reinhold has just been published in the Review of Industrial Organization.

After earlier waves of privatization, local governments have increasingly taken back control of local service provisions in some sectors and countries and instead started providing those services themselves (reverse privatization). Using a unique panel dataset on the mode of service provision for solid waste collection for German municipalities that cover the years 2003, 2009, and 2015, the researchers investigate the motives for reverse privatization. Their results show that—in deciding whether to insource or not—municipalities react to the cost advantages of private suppliers as well as to the competitive environment and municipal activity: there is more switching to insourcing in concentrated markets and in markets with horizontally or vertically related public services. Local interest groups influence this decision as well.

Link to the article

We are happy to announce that E.CA Economics is participating in Barcelona School of Economics’ Virtual Career Fair 2021.
On 22 October, Jan Christopher Rönn and Ignacio Balaguer López will represent E.CA Economics and inform you about career opportunities as a postgraduate in Economics.

Once more the Competition & Regulation European Summer School and Conference (CRESSE) will be dealing with competition and sectoral regulation issues with emphasis on the policy relevance: tomorrow, the 15th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPETITION AND REGULATION starts. This year’s theme: Advances in the analysis of competition policy and regulation.

Our director Hans W. Friederiszick is looking forward to chairing a special policy session on “Systematically incorporating innovation in Competition Law Enforcement” with the panelists Eliana Garces (Facebook), Dr. Marc Ivaldi (Toulouse School of Economics and NERA Economic Consulting), Bruno JULLIEN (Toulouse School of Economics), Kai-Uwe Kühn (Brattle), Aviv Nevo (University of Pennsylvania) and Howard Shelanski (Georgetown University).

More information on CRESSE conference
See the full programme here

E.CA Economics has announced the promotion of Bas Dessens to Director. He will be responsible for business activities at the London office. He has been with E.CA Economics since 2006, and has extensive experience in the field of competition economics. Bas Dessens, who was previously a Principal at E.CA Economics, joins the leadership team with the promotion.

Download Press Release here

What level of levies on electricity prices bears the risk that energy-intensive firms relocate? A consortium headed by E.CA Economics provides the EC with an economic study for the EEAG revision

Link to Press Release in EN

Welche Abgabenhöhe auf den Strompreis führt zu einem Verlagerungsrisiko für energieintensive Unternehmen? Ein Konsortium unter Leitung von E.CA Economics liefert der Europäischen Kommission eine ökonomische Studie für die EEAG-Revision

Link to Press Release in DE

Our associate principal Vilen Lipatov will take part in the Online Executive Education Program of the Toulouse School of Economics, on June 17 (11:15am-12:45pm). He will be a discussant to the lecture “ALGORITHMIC PRICING AND COMPETITION: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE” by Daniel Ershov, Professor, TSE. Vilen and other participants will share their thoughts about the most relevant issues concerning the use of algorithms as screening devices by competition agencies.

Link to Registration

LinkedIn Post

Annual international conference NEW FRONTIERS OF ANTITRUST, organised by Concurrences
WEBINAR | Wednesday 9 June 2021 15.30 – 17.00 CEST

VERTICAL RESTRICTIONS: VBER, EVERYTHING CHANGED?

Our director Alexis Walckiers will discuss the revision of the vertical guidelines and VBER with Svend Albaek, Adviser to Chief Economist, DG COMP, Brussels, Luc Peeperkorn, Professor, Brussels School of Competition and College of Europe, Former Principal Advisor Antitrust Policy at European Commission, DG COMP, Brussels and Thibaud Vergé, Professor of Economics, ENSAE, Paris. The moderator will be Laurence Idot, Emeritus Professor, University Paris II Panthéon-Assas, President, Concurrences Review Scientific Committee.

Link to registration

While the European Commission is exploring a possible revision of the VBER and of the Vertical Guidelines and assessing the various policy options proposed, the panel will reflect on some of the relevant issues and subjects in the VBER, some more controversial than others, but all having been over the years at the center of the debates on the legal framework applying to vertical restraints.

Link to interview: Svend Albaek in conversation with Alexis Walckiers

E.CA is thrilled to announce that three articles written by E.CA colleagues have been selected for the 2021 Antitrust Writing Awards by Concurrences and The George Washington University for the best Academic article category. This year, the Editorial Committee received a record-breaking of 1,200+ submissions. The full articles of the nominees can be read online.

The nominees are:

• in the subcategory “10. Digital”: Özlem Bedre-Defolie and Rainer Nitsche, “When do markets tip? An overview and some insights for policy”, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, December 2020, Volume 11, Issue 10.
• in the subcategory “11. Economics”: Hans W. Friederiszick, Linda Gratz and Michael Rauber, “The impact of EU cartel policy reforms on the timing of settlements in private follow-on damages disputes—an empirical assessment of cases from 2001 to 2015”, Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, November 9, 2020.
• in the subcategory “11. Economics”:
  Vilen Lipatov, Damien Neven and Georges Siotis, “Pre-empting the entry of near perfect substitutes”, Journal of Competition Law & Economics, March 2021, Volume 17, Issue 1.

Gregor Langus takes part in the virtual roundtable discussion on “Platform envelopment through data – When does it lead to market foreclosure?”, organised by the Digital Markets Competition Forum of the Copenhagen Business School.

Does platform envelopment create data advantages and high entry barriers for competitors? Should data aggregation be restricted? The workshop revisits the concept of platform envelopment, the value creation nature of data aggregation and repurposing in the context of digital platform ecosystems as well as the potential role of data for platform monopolistic entrenchment and the policy implications.

The virtual roundtable discussion takes place on 15th April 2021.

Our directors Linda Gratz and Alexis Walckiers participate as mentors in the W@Competition Mentoring Programme.

Women@Competition is a platform for women competition professionals – striving to enable women professionals to be easily found, normalise women professionals’ presence in public space and to facilitate connections among women professionals.

In the mentoring program, female mentees are matched with mentors who work in a complementary discipline of the profession (e.g. in-house lawyer with private practice economist, or European Commission official with private practice lawyer). Eligible mentees are female professionals who could benefit from external mentoring and who would like to be inspired by a fresh perspective on how to thrive their careers.

#internationalwomensday #womenineconomics #womenatcompetition

LinkedIn Post

Dear SCOPE Maastricht students, stop by our virtual booth at the Maastricht Business Days and get to know us. Alix DE LOUSTAL, Harm van Leeuwen and Josefin Karg will show you who we are and what we do – and answer your questions.

Link to the event

Link to registration

Linda Gratz has been promoted to Director in our Munich office. Her areas of expertise include damage assessments in multiple cartel proceedings and abuse of dominance investigations. She also has particular expertise in the assessment of mergers in industries such as telecommunications, construction materials, copper, FMCG, press logistics and touristic flights.

With her promotion, Linda joins the leadership team of E.CA Economics, now comprising seven directors: Hans W. Friederiszick, Linda Gratz, Thomas Hildebrand, Simone Kohnz, Gregor Langus, Rainer Nitsche and Alexis Walckiers.

Download press release here

Our directors Hans W. Friederiszick, Thomas Hildebrand, Simone Kohnz and Rainer Nitsche have written this year’s Global Competition Review Enforcer Hub’s economics perspective on Germany.

The article showcases the high level of competition law enforcement of the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office, FCO) over the past year, which led to important court victories. Besides a number of interventions in traditional industries, the FCO undoubtedly focused on recent developments in digital markets, where various policy papers demonstrate its appetite to shape the debate in this field. We do not expect any change from that perspective in the coming years: with the 10th Amendment of the German Competition Act in implementation, the FCO’s initiatives will be grounded in an antitrust law tailored towards digital markets.

Read more

An extract from GCR’s Enforcer Hub. The whole publication is available here.

We are proud to announce the following promotions – Linda Gratz, Director; Michael Rauber, Associate Principal; Brecht Boone, Manager; Benedikt Fluegel, Jan Melcher, Florian Peiseler, Valeria Plata Franco, Senior Economist, Mariana Rocha, Team Assistant and Project Coordinator. Congratulations – Great success!

We are delighted to announce that E.CA Economics has been listed under Economics 21 in the GCR 100 2021 by Global Competition Review. This is a great recognition for the work of our dedicated team. Over the past year, E.CA Economics has worked on major merger reviews by the European Commission and national enforcers in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom and the Benelux countries. Thank you to all our clients and business partners for their trust.

Click here for more information

Get in touch with our team

Dr Hans W. Friederiszick,  Dr Ela Głowicka and  Dr Anselm Mattes will be leading an international consortium for E.CA Economics, commissioned by the European Commission ( DG Competition) with a background study on State aid in the field of environmental protection and energy.

The European Commission (DG Competition) commissioned an international consortium led by E.CA Economics with a background study on State aid in the field of environmental protection and energy. The consortium consists of E.CA Economics, DIW Berlin, LEAR, University of East Anglia and Sheppard Mullin. The results of the study will support the Commission in the revision of the EU Guidelines on State aid for environmental protection and energy (EEAG) as well as the respective parts of the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER). The study will assist the Commission in updating the Guidelines to ensure that they are fit-for-purpose, taking into account the general State aid modernisation objectives and the recent regulatory developments (notably the Clean Energy Package, Clean Mobility Package and Circular Economy Package), and that they facilitate the implementation of the European Green Deal. The revision of the Guidelines will also take into account the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Member States economies and their funding capabilities together with the deployment of the Recovery Plan for Europe.

E.CA Economics is proud to announce that Alexis Walckiers joined its Brussels office as a Director since 1 September 2020. Alexis Walckiers comes to E.CA as the former Chief Economist of the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA).  Alexis represented the BCA on international panels, like meetings of the national chief economists, and served as the President of the Association of Competition Economics from 2016 to 2018.

Alexis holds a PhD in Economics from the ECARES Université libre de Bruxelles where he teaches economics at the Solvay business school. His recent papers on vertical restraints and hub-and-spoke collusion have been published in the International Journal of Industrial Organization and the Journal of European Competition Law and Practice.

Link to Press Release

Link to BCA news

Link to GCR news article

Dr. Hans W. Friederiszick will be participating in one of the three Special Policy Sessions organised by the CRESSE committee. In session 2 on US Vertical Mergers: Enforcement Developments and Guidelines, a distinguished panel of economists will discuss vertical mergers in different jurisdictions, also in the context of the recently proposed Vertical Merger Guidelines. Hans W. Friederiszick will be commenting on the different contributions.

The session will take place on 1 July 2020 at 17.00-19.00. Please register free of charge here to follow the live stream.

For the remaining sessions on 26 June 2020 and 7 July 2020, please go to the conference website for more information.

In this article, Gregor Langus and Brecht Boone explain how irreversibility of investment combined with market power can result in a delay in investments in the current climate of high uncertainty due to Covid-19. Building on these insights, the authors discuss the implications for the design of state aid and other fiscal policies.

Link to the article

E.CA Economics contributed to the support study on State aid rules for environmental protection and energy, written in collaboration with teams from Centre for Competition Policy and the Brussels office of Sheppard Mullin, which led the study. This report provides DG Competition with background information for the review of the EU Guidelines on State aid for environmental protection and energy (EEAG) applicable in 2014-2020 and on the provisions applicable to aid for environmental protection and energy (Section 7) of Commission Regulation (EU) 651/2014 (GBER). Ela Głowicka co-authored the report in collaboration with Linda Gratz.

Link to the report

E.CA Economics was the leader of the retrospective evaluation of the regional State aid framework project and collaborated with teams from Firms and Markets Department at the Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung and the Brussels office of Sheppard Mullin. The report with the results of the evaluation was published by DG Competition on 2 June 2020. The study provides evidence-based assessment of the implementation of the RAF 2014 and its effects on regional development and competition. Hans W. Friederiszick, Ela Głowicka and Linda Gratz co-authored the study in collaboration with further E.CA staff Brecht Boone, Zachary Herriges, Harm van Leeuwen and Wiktor Owczarz.

Link to the report

On 2 June 2020 DG Competition published support studies on the retrospective evaluation of State aid rules, which will be a basis for future Commission decisions about whether to further prolong or update the rules expiring in 2020.

The consortium of DIW Berlin, E.CA Economics, Lear, Sheppard Mullin and UEA Consulting under the leadership of E.CA Economics provided evaluation studies in four State aid areas: regional State aid, State aid for access to finance for SMEs, State aid rules for operating aid under the EU aviation framework and State aid rules for environmental protection and energy.

Link to the “Fitness check” announcement

and link to all four studies:

Retrospective evaluation of the regional aid framework

Evaluation support study on the EU rules on State aid for access to finance for SMEs

Support study for the evaluation of the rules for operating aid under the EU aviation framework

Retrospective evaluation support study on State aid rules for environmental protection and energy

E.CA Economics is proud to announce that Gregor Langus is joining the Brussels office as a new Director.

Gregor, who holds a Ph.D. from the European University Institute Florence, can look back on more than six years of work experience at the Chief Economist Team, DG COMP. During his two terms at the CET, he collaborated closely with three different Chief Economists and served under three Commissioners. In addition, Gregor held senior positions with major international consultancies in Brussels – CRA and Compass Lexecon.

Link to Press release

Link to GCR News article

E.CA Economics is looking for a Teamassistenz/Teamkoordination/Paralegal (m/w/d), Vollzeit (ggfs. auch Teilzeit möglich, min. 75%)

Link to job description DE/EN

Link to our careers page

Benedikt Flügel and Jan-Christopher Rönn attended the MACCI Career Day that took place in Mannheim on 5th March 2020.

Link to the flyer of the event

Link to the website

TSE Executive Education Seminar

Dr. Hans W. Friederiszick  participated in the TSE Executive Education Seminar “Preparing for Court: What it Takes to Be an Effective Expert Witness” that was held at the Renaissance Hotel, Brussels on 13th February 2020. He was part of the Economists table in the “Cross Examination Roundtable” panel.

Link to programme

Link to event page

E.CA Economics has promoted Thomas Hildebrand to director in Berlin.

Thomas joined E.CA Economics in 2011. He has extensive experience in supporting clients across various fields of competition economics, with a particular focus on cartel and information exchange cases and abuse of dominance cases. Thomas’ industry experience spans a broad variety of fields including grocery retailing, fast-moving consumer goods, chemicals, cement, refractories, automotive parts, trucks, freight forwarding, print/television/online advertising and digital markets.

Download press release here

Link to GCR News article

We are proud to announce the following promotions – Thomas Hildebrand, Director; Ela Glowicka and Anselm Mattes, Principal; Alia Schweiger, Associate Principal; Juri Demuth and Harm van Leeuwen, Manager; Paula Mäkelä, Thomas Nau and Juri Simons, Senior Economist. Congratulations – great success!

Valeria Plata and Juri Simons participated in the Toulouse Business Networking Day that was held Friday 29 November 2019 at the Toulouse School of Economics.

Link to the website

Hans W Friederiszick, Ela Glowicka, Moritz Schwarz, Alia Schweiger are at the ACE Conference held in Copenhagen on 14-15 November 2019. Hans W. Friederiszick hosted a panel on a national Danish merger and Ela Glowicka presented our analysis in the panel on the Horizon/Brink merger in Germany.

Link to the Program

Link to the Website

Alia Schweiger and Benedikt Flügel attended the Barcelona GSE Consulting Day on 21 October 2019

Link to the Career Fair

E.CA Economics is looking for Junior Economists and Interns, in particular for our Brussels office

For more information, please visit our Careers page

Zach Herriges and Stefan Witte attended Tilburg University’s Inside the Business Day 2019 where they presented the firm and a case from the competition practice. They were delighted to meet a group of smart, interested and highly motivated students from all over the world to work the case study with them.

Link to the career fair

Alia Schweiger, Manager at E.CA Economics, will participate in a panel discussion on „E-Commerce & Platform Businesses: Legal Framework – A Moving Target for Producers, Brand Owners, Dealers and Consumers?“ at the UIA’s 10th Annual Business Law Forum on 20 & 21 September 2019 in Vienna.

Link to the 10th Annual Business Law Forum in Vienna