Indonesia, 10 October 2018 – A series of competition primers to support members of the judiciary in ASEAN Member States (AMS) were launched at the 8^th Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/Korea Policy Centre Competition Seminar.

The primers provide practical guidance focusing on challenges and issues judges may face when evaluating evidence in a competition law context. These are designed to assist in the development of effective competition law precedent, contributing to an increase in legal certainty and efficiency, and fostering consistency for competition law matters within AMS.

The four primers are principles-based and have been developed in the context of the differences in, and the varying stages of development of, competition laws in AMS. The primers cover the following topics:

• Economics for judges in the competition law context
• Abuse of dominant position: what is it and how is it assessed?
• Circumstantial evidence in the context of competition law
• Expert evidence in the context of competition law.

The Honorable John Middleton, Judge, Federal Court of Australia (FCA) commented that “cases arising under Part IV (restrictive trade practices) and Schedule 2 (the Australian Consumer Law) of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 constitute a significant part of the workload of the Federal Court of Australia.”

“It was a privilege to be able to draw on the expertise the FCA has acquired engaging with principles of both competition law and economics to develop, with input from the OECD, written tools to assist the diverse audience of judges in the ASEAN Member States. We trust that the Primers will prove a valuable and long enduring resource for judges in our region deciding competition law matters,” added Justice Middleton.

“The ACCC was pleased to facilitate the work of the Federal Court of Australia and the OECD to develop these tools, recognising that such tools are most appropriately developed by judges for judges,” said Gabrielle Ford, General Manager at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

The primers were developed by the FCA in close cooperation with the OECD as part of the AANZFTA Economic Cooperation Support Programs multiphase Competition Law Implementation Program (CLIP) implemented by the ACCC.

 

“These Primers bring together the Federal Court of Australia’s very rich technical knowledge with the OECD’s international experience working with judges in competition law and policy. The Primers offer a first overview or port of call for the issues that courts will need to consider in most competition cases. I believe this collaborative work will prove very useful for judges in ASEAN as they will be increasingly faced with competition cases in the years to come.” (Professor Frédéric Jenny, Chairman, OECD Competition Committee)

“The Primers contain materials that are important for judges to understand the economic aspects of competition cases. Written in plain English, the Primers are easy to understand for judges with no economics background.” (Justice Syamsul Maarif, Supreme Court of Indonesia)

 “It was a privilege to be able to draw on the expertise the FCA has acquired engaging with principles of both competition law and economics to develop, with input from the OECD, written tools to assist the diverse audience of judges in the ASEAN Member States. We trust that the Primers will prove a valuable and long enduring resource for judges in our region deciding competition law matters.” (The Honorable Justice John Middleton, Federal Court of Australia).

 

The primers could be downloaded through the following link: https://asean-competition.org/read-publication-competition-primers-for-asean-judges