Peter Holmes introduced the discussion by summarising the research undertaken at Sussex and seeking to define the agenda. He pointed out that the international competition policy agenda has two quite different strands. The Sussex project is entitled "The International Regulation of Competition and Competition Policy" and this wording reflects the fact that the discussion concerns two related but different themes.

The first is the need for some control of anti-competitive behaviour that takes place in an international context: the regulation of international competition in the sense of ensuring that competition occurs. The second aspect, the international regulation of competition policy, concerns the fact that the way national competition policies are applied can sometimes be discriminatory, being tougher on some firms than others. This can have implications for market access if, for example, domestic firms are allowed to get away with preserving local distribution monopolies which exclude foreigners. The Sussex researchers distinguish therefore the "International Anti-trust" agenda and the "Market Access" agenda. The interests differ quite markedly. The first set of issues concern primarily consumers in both OECD and LDC countries and to some extent smaller firms, while the market access agenda is largely driven by large exporting firms who perceive implicit regulatory barriers to some markets.

Peter Holmes stressed that while the relationship between anti-dumping and international competition policy was important, the research at Sussex had revealed just how much these instruments had grown apart, and were aiming at different things, and while the anti-dumping competition link was one topic that would come up, this was not to be another workshop on the theme of whether one could replace the other.

Peter Holmes’s remarks were mainly devoted to the implications of the anti-trust agenda, but he noted that "market access" has become the more prominent issue in recent discussions, and the liveliest debates in the workshop concerned that aspect.

Within the international anti-trust perspective, Peter Holmes raised three questions: Are there still cross border anti-competitive practices, e.g. global cartels or dominant positions that may be abused? Can they all be adequately addressed under current rules? If not, is there scope for an international régime?

He argued that the answers are yes, no and maybe. The European Commission and the US Anti-Trust Division both agree that there are anti-competitive practices of a cross border nature that need to be addressed by policy. Examples include transnational mergers and alliances (BT-MCI, BA-American Airlines, Boeing-MDD), the prior Microsoft case, and the Kodak-Fuji case. In addition, there are a number of industries where it has been alleged that anti-competitive behaviour occurs on a cross border basis, and the spread of global strategic alliances in telecoms is striking. On the other hand the freeing of trade means that some national market structure problems are less serious. There can be little dispute therefore that competition policy must have an international dimension.

What is less clear, however, is whether this is adequately dealt with at present. Peter Holmes agreed with the DG IV view that there are a number of issues which are not adequately dealt with by present structures. Despite the progress in cooperation this is still embryonic.

The question arises, however, whether anything can be done to improve matters. The obstacles to enhanced international cooperation might mean that the costs of attempting to achieve such cooperation exceed the benefits. Holmes argued that it seemed very clear that there was little support for the most advanced forms of international cooperation, i.e. an international anti-trust agency, but that there was a broad range of forms of policy coordination and cooperation falling short of that extreme which could be considered. These ranged from an extension of the voluntary OECD codes to fairly binding agreements involving an exchange of rights and obligations among smaller groups of countries.

After the initial tour d’horizon Rob Anderson of the WTO secretariat then updated the meeting on the latest work of the WTO working group on the interaction between trade and competition. He outlined the latest stage of the group’s activities and stressed firmly that there are no negotiations going on, just discussions which might or might not lead to the possibility of negotiations. But he insisted that the discussions were proving remarkably fruitful in clarifying and developing the thinking of participants, some of whom had arrived with rather fixed ideas on the subject and some of whom had had no ideas at all.

The view that the unacceptability of rapid and dramatic progress should not be seen as a bar to modest steps was echoed by Dr Knud Hansen of the Bundeskartellamt who advocated a cautious but positive approach to the development of international agreement. He argued that there were global anti-competitive concerns not being dealt with adequately. Imelda Maher of Birkbeck College argued that even the most binding of agreements on harmonising competition rules for the purposes of ensuring free trade did not imply complete uniformity of approach.

Some other speakers, notably Stephen Walzer of BAT Industries and Ross Denton of Baker Mackenzie were very sceptical. Ross Denton for his intervention had prepared the same checklist of questions answered no, no, no. There were no serious cross-border anti-competitive activities occurring that could not easily – perhaps in their view too easily – be tackled by national or EU anti-trust authorities. Any wider powers would be unjustifiable and would risk imposing disproportionate costs on business.

The issue on which the officials present were divided was whether it was necessary to prove the existence of cross-jurisdictional anti-competitive behaviour before any action to deal with it could be envisaged. One side argued that the existence of such practices could never be proven beyond reasonable doubt until investigative powers were strengthened. The fact that once equipped with such powers the EC Competition authorities had discovered such practices even within the EU provided prima facie evidence that a problem still existed.

The counter-view was that open markets almost certainly were doing the job and that if anti-competitive actions did exist there would be more than indirect evidence of them; moreover it was stressed, there are already some instruments available.

The analytical issues of the relationships between trade and competition and regulatory policy were then debated. Sally Vansiclen of the OECD explained the relevance of the OECD’s work on regulatory reform here. She pointed out that the triangular relationship between trade, competition and regulatory policies was being looked at in a rather schizophrenic way. There was general agreement that the reform of regulation was likely to mean more competition, and that wherever possible sector specific regulatory rules should be replaced by competition and if necessary competition policy, but little thought had been given to the fact that trade officials are increasingly paying attention to the possibility that competition policy itself could create a regulatory distortion.

The case against any form of agreement that might create an obligation on WTO members was forcibly made by representatives from Hong Kong who argued that their open trade policy guaranteed the effectiveness of competitive disciplines in all but the most exceptional cases which direct intervention by the government could easily solve. There was no need to set up any kind of new dedicated agency. On the contrary, the biggest problem in the interface of trade and competition was the anti-competitive consequences of trade measures by OECD states, notably VERs and anti-dumping.

This session led to a vigorous follow-up in which from the EU side it was argued that the trade and competition agenda seemed to have been taken over by a coalition within the WTO who were seeking to undo the main part of the Uruguay Round which had been unsatisfying to them, namely the anti-dumping agreement. Hannes Welge of DG I speaking purely personally speculated on what the interests really were. He suggested that rightly or wrongly the international anti-trust agenda had few economic interests in the OECD area behind it: there were exporter interests behind the market access agenda, but the targets of that issue were unlikely to move without some reaction from the anti-dumping side, which was hard to envisage. It might be hard to construct a deal that would stick. Indeed the US view was expressed that it was extremely unlikely that Congress would consider undoing US anti-dumping laws as part of any deal.

This negative note was challenged in the panel in which entrants, consumers and industrial users presented their views. Phil Evans of the Consumers’ Association insisted that not only did economic theory tell us not to rely on free entry to guarantee global competitive markets, but that there were also concrete examples which could be cited. This was supported by Arthur Oppenheimer of the Telecom Managers Association who produced price data to make the case that international call charges had not fallen by enough to justify the claim that competition was working effectively: individual users were so overwhelmed with information and claims on their attention that they were powerless even when they had formal access to the consultative processes. Barry Humphries of Virgin Atlantic cited a number of problems in the airline industry which indicated that competition problems were not being properly addressed by the responsible national authorities who were still acting according to national champion logic. At this point the US Dept of Justice declined to comment on the activities of the Dept of Transportation.

In a round-up session officials of a number of international agencies spoke of the issue as seen from their perspective. The point was made that UNCTAD was closely involved, and certainly not as involved as the OECD. On the whole, however, the closing session highlighted a theme that has been emerging in the research carried out at Sussex. Whilst there are clear divergences of interest between the EU, United States and important Asian actors, there is as big a division within most administrations. A split exists between trade and competition officials, less perhaps in the United Kingdom and Brussels than elsewhere it seems, and on a subtle level. Nevertheless, with market access as the driving force in the discussions, competition officials are afraid that any form of international agreement might constrain national competition and anti-trust agencies to act in a more mercantilist manner. In a nutshell the competition officials don’t trust the trade officials. Discussions at the OECD have been trying to overcome this problem but it has not gone away. On the other hand discussions such as those in the WTO working group are moving some way to reassure those who believe that any agreement at all will be extremely constraining. There are clearly a multiplicity of options ranging from limited bilateral agreements to multilateral agreements on core principles. Participants felt that the workshop at Sussex had usefully furthered the debate on these options.