INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION FOR COMPETITION AGENCIES OF SMALL ECONOMIES ? Pablo Carnevale Member Competition to Promote Competition Costa Rica

QUESTIONS Should a competition authotity of a small economy establish international cooperation agreemets with other countries? What type of limitations could a small agency have in order to establish cooperation agreements with other countries?

QUESTIONS What are the practical posibilities of international cooperation agreements? The Free Trade Agreement between Costa Rica and Canada. What are the future challenges for competition agencies of small economies?

LIMITATIONS Institutional and legal differences between developed and developing countries. –Availability of information. –Legal limitations to exchange confidential information. Differences in the size and development of the market. Cost vrs. benefits.

FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN COSTA RICA-CANADA General Principles –Anticompetitive conducts –Keeps exlusions of each Law –Non discrimination principle –Independece of the competition authority –Due process

FTA COSTA RICA-CANADA NOTIFICATIONS a) are relevant to the enforcement actions of the other Party; b)involve anticompetitive activities, other than mergers and acquisitiosn, carried out in whole or in part in the territory of the other Party and that may be significant fot that Party;

c) involve mergers and acquisitions in which one or more of the enterprises to the transition, is incorporated or organized under the laws of the other Party or one of its provinces; d) involve remedies that expressly require or prohibit conduct in the territory of the other Party or are otherwise directed at conduct in that territory; or FTA COSTA RICA-CANADA NOTIFICATIONS

e) involve the seeking of information located in the territory of the other Party, whether by personal visit by officials of a Party or otherwise, except with respect to telephone contacts with a person in the territory of the other Party where that person is not the subject of enforcement action and the contact seeks only an oral response on a voluntary basis.

FTA COSTA RICA-CANADA EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION Nothing in this Agreement shall require the provision of information by a Party or its competition authority contrary to its laws. The Parties shall, to the fullest extent possible, maintain the confidentiality of any information communicated to it in confidence by the other Party.

FTA COSTA RICA-CANADA CONSULTATIONS The Parties shall consult either at least once every two years, or persuant to Article XIII.4 (Cooperation) on the written request of a Party, to consider matters regarding the operation, implementarion, application or interpretation of the Agreement and to review the Parties mesasures to proscribe anticompetitive activites and the effectiveness of enforcement actions.

FUTURE CHALLENGES a)Countries with recently enacted competition laws must face the challenge to reduce the gap with more developed systems and institutions. Specially with regard to the treatment of confidential information.

FUTURE CHALLENGES b)Countries without competition regulatios must enact them. This regulations are equally important to the country itself, as well as to those small economies that have commercial relations with it.

FUTURE CHALLENGES c) Find resources for the establishment and development of cooperation programs. The resources devoted to this purpose should be proportional to the occurrence of cases with transnational effects. The success in these particular investigations is to some extent dependant of international cooperation.