KFTC Holds Int'l Talks
on Competition Law

4th Seoul Competition Forum, to be held in Gyeongju on Sept. 5

Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) will hold the 4th Seoul International Competition Forum on Sep. 5 at Hotel Hyundai in Gyeongju. The meeting is organized for competition officials and experts in competition laws & policies around the world to share their ideas and have in-depth discussions on how to further develop competition laws and legal frameworks.
About 150 participants from around the world are expected to attend the forum, including top competition officials such as Mr. Kazuhiko Takeshima, chairman of Fair Trade Commission of Japan, Mr. Eduardo Perez Motta, chairman of the Mexican Federal Competition Commission, Mr. Mustafa Parlak, president of the Turkish Competition Authority, and Mr. Sarath Wijesinghe, chairman of the Consumer Affairs Authority, Sri Lanka. Also, high ranking competition officials including Mr. Philip Lowe, director general for Competition of the EC Commission, Mr. Zhong Youping, vice minister of State Administration for Industry & Commerce of People's Republic of China, Mr. William Blumenthal, general counsel for the United States Federal Trade Commission, Professor Meinrad Dreher from Germany, Professor David J. Gerber and Professor Warren Grimes from USA, Mr. Paul Crampton from Canada, Mr. Kiminori Eguchi from Japan, and Mr. Phillip Brusick from UNCTAD will make a presentation and take part in the discussions during the Forum.
Seoul International Competition Forum was first held in 2001, and since its second forum in 2002, it has been held every two years making this year's forum the fourth one.
The Forum has been a unique significant event for discussions on competition policies because it is held in Korea where competition laws were adopted quite early on in its economic development and has been successfully implemented ever since. The introduction of competition laws to Korea was made when it was still a developing country,
and for the past 25 years, after a lot of trials and errors, it has firmly established competition laws with a great success. For this achievement, Korea has been a good example to developing & transition countries trying to find ways to effectively adopt competition laws and strengthen their capacity to enforce them. Therefore many officials from young competition agencies participate in Seoul International Competition Forum because it furnishes them with opportunities not only to exchange opinions with competition officials from around the world but also to share experience of Korea.
Dr. Kwon Ohseung, chairman of KFTC, said, "Although the primary purpose of Seoul Competition Forum has been to facilitate cooperation among competition authorities and refine their competition laws and policies through extensive and intensive discussions on major competition issues, we have been also working to help developing and transition countries in Asia build legal systems necessary to establish market economy through this forum"
This year's forum also picked issues that will be of interest especially to young competition authorities. Dr. Kwon said "all issues to be discussed in the Forum will be of interest to all competition authorities, but I believe that they will be very useful especially for competition authorities of developing and transition countries either preparing to adopt competition laws or striving to beef up their law enforcement capacity after adopting competition laws."Session I will cover the topic of achievement of competition laws and policies and their future development. Korea and a couple of countries will present what they have achieved over the years in enforcing competition laws and policies, and how to further refine them going forward. There is diversity among competition authorities in terms of their achievement and enforcement challenges. This is because, while competition authorities in some countries or regions like the U.S., the EU and Japan have relatively rich experience in this field, those in Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries or regions are virtually at the starting point. Therefore, many competition experts'assessment and advice will be of great help to them. Also Korea's 25 years long experience and recent development in competition law enforcement to be discussed in this session should be meaningful to young competition authorities of developing countries.
Session II will explore what relationship competition laws and policies have with consumer laws and policies. They pursue the common goal of remedying market failure and enhancing consumer welfare. They are also in a complimentary relationship where success on the one side reinforces success on the other. In other words, when competition policies promote market competition, increasing market competition enhances economic efficiency and ultimately consumer welfare. Meanwhile, when consumer policies help consumers make reasonable choices, this facilitates competition on the merit. To maximize this synergy, in many countries, competition authorities have been given the jurisdiction of both competition and consumer policies or they have been working very closely with consumer policy enforcers. During this session, several countries'competition and consumer policy enforcement regimes and enforcement experience will be discussed. This session is expected to provide many competition authorities with an opportunity to identify the most effective enforcement regimes that best suit their own circumstances.
Lastly, in Session III\, the issue of the relationship between Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and competition laws and policies will be discussed. WTO's researches show that RTAs designed to facilitate free flows of trade and capital among countries in specific regions have increased significantly since early 1990 and they are expected to grow from 139 in July 2005 up to 300 in 2008. What is interesting in the development is that more and more RTAs are adopting competition chapters. With the WTO's efforts to establish multilateral rules having ground to a halt, it is understood that this development is a reflection of the efforts to set up bilateral or regional competition rules to resolve trade restrictions from anti-competitive practices. This session will invite presentations on competition chapters included in RTAs around the world and actual examples of cooperation among competition authorities to implement them. These presentations and ensuing discussions is designed to provide young competition authorities with insights into how to prepare themselves for competition rules adopted in trade agreements.
The 11th International Workshop on Competition Policy will follow the Seoul Competition Forum on 6th and 7th of September also at Hotel Hyundai in Gyeongju. The International Workshop on Competition Policy, which has been held every year since 1996, provides senior executives from developing & transition countries with the opportunity to share and discuss their own experience in competition law introduction & enforcement and future development. This year's workshop is all the more meaningful in that it will be held along with the UNCTAD Asia region seminar. More than 50 government officials from 22 countries are expected to participate in the 11th Workshop.
This workshop will be comprised of 5 sessions. Each session will discuss following subjects respectively: experience in negotiating and signing Regional Trade Agreements containing competition clauses and lessons learned, impact and role of provisions on competition in RTAs, ways to promote efficiency of regional cooperation in the field of competition laws and policies, case study on cartel investigation and law enforcement, and introduction of competition to regulated industries.
This year's events will be also meaningful in that it will be held in Gyeongju, the capital city of ancient Silla Dynasty. Participants will have chance to enjoy history of Korea by visiting numerous historic sites and artifacts that represent Korea's beautiful nature and cultural richness. nw

Dr. Kwon Ohseung, chairman of Korea Fair Trade Commission