Benoit Durand is partner at RBB Economics. Before joining RBB, he was Director of Economic Analysis at the UK Competition Commission. Previously, he was a member of the Office of the Chief Economist, a service of the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission, where he worked on mergers and antitrust investigations covering a large range of industries. Prior to this he worked as an economic consultant in Washington DC specializing in competition policy matters. He holds a PhD in economics from Boston College.
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In 2001, the Bundeskartellamt conducted a series of dawn raids and discovered the existence of a cartel in the cement industry in Germany. Cement producers had divided the market, reaching agreements on sales quotas. This cartel had been operating at least since the beginning of the 1990s. (...)
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"The role of quantitative analysis to delineate antitrust markets: An example. Blackstone / Acetex"* Introduction On 20 January 2005, the Commission received a notification for the proposed acquisition of Acetex, an active producer in the acetyls and plastic business, by Blackstone, a U.S. (...)
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"GE/Instrumentarium: a practical example of the use of quantitative analyses in merger control"* On 2 September 2003, the European Commission approved, subject to conditions, the acquisition by General Electric Medical Systems (‘GE’) of the Finnish firm Instrumentarium. The Commission was (...)
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Tommaso Valletti, Chief Competition Economist at the DG COMP since september 2016, assesses the role of the chief competition economist (CEE) and the necessary interaction between economics and competition law in this interview conducted by Benoît Durand, RBB Economics, Brussels. The chief (...)
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In recent decisions involving fast-moving consumer goods, the European Commission has relied on merger simulation models to predict the likely effect of horizontal mergers. Is this the beginning of a new trend? The merger simulation label contains a variety of models, and if all merger (...)
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There is no alternative to the hypothetical monopolist test to define the relevant market. Even though the test is difficult to apply, adopting other alternatives such as that advocated by the French competition authority in its merger guidelines is a risky venture. However, the hypothetical (...)
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1 The CCLA has a strong interest in mass distribution. Recently, it has recently carried out a self-investigation to investigate the practice of "category management" between food retail operators and some of their suppliers. In the past, other competition authorities have also taken an (...)
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Economic literature is warning us that applying a one-sided market logic in two sided markets is bound to generate some errors when assessing the extent of competition between firms. This article reviews some recent UK merger decisions in two-sided market industries and found that in all (...)
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