ANNEXURE A

OUTLINE OF THE CASE-STUDY REPORTS

1. Factual presentation

Description of the case. What is/was happening?

For instance the merger between two large MNCs like the Coca Cola – Cadbury Schweppes merger or a takeover of a domestic company by a foreign MNC. Or formation and prevalence of a cartel or any other restrictive trade practice.

•       What is the structure of the relevant market? Product market and geographical markets. Are there regional considerations that would require the geographical market to be redefined, make it broader?

•       What are the effects on the domestic market of each country? Does such an M&A create a dominant position of market power or does the practice in question create significant entry barriers or weaken competition in the market?

2. What are the legal issues?

What are the relevant provisions of the competition law? What are the provisions that bring a particular case under the auspices of the competition authorities?

• On what grounds can the competition authority approve or deny approval for the merger? Or on what grounds can it interfere in a certain sector of the market?

• What are the provisions that prescribe how the evaluation should be made? What are the factors that have to be taken into account?

3. Analysis of the case vis-à-vis the provisions

This is the core of the study. It is the actual analysis. An analysis of point 1 vis-à-vis point 2.

• What are the effects on competition of the merger, or the existence of a dominant position or a cartel?

• How will the market change? Or what changes are necessary to bring more competition into the market?

• What are the effects on trade and the economy/public interest?

• Etc.

4. Decision or lack of the decision by the competition authority  

What was the outcome of the authority’s analysis, if any? Why did they make this decision or not

• What were the pressures on the authority from the government; public opinion; the companies under investigation?

• What were the difficulties in obtaining information?

• Was any regional or international cooperation necessary to analyse the case?

• Was the decision of the authority influenced by outside pressures?

• Was the decision of the authority enforced properly (in letter and spirit)?

5. How did the authority deal with these problems?

Did they deal with them at all? If not, what were the reasons?

• Was the authority pro-active enough?

• Did they seek outside help (from other agencies within and outside government, including chamber of commerce, consumer organisations & NGOs, govt. departments, experts etc. and foreign agencies.)?

• Could they deal with these problems adequately?

6. Causes and possible recommendations

What were the areas/causes that made it difficult for the authority to deal with the case/problems adequately and what recommendations could be made to solve them?

• Was it because of faults in the legal provisions? If so, what needs to be changed?

• Was it because of lack of funds?

• Lack of capable staff

• Lack of available data to make a good market assessment

• Lack of cooperation from foreign agencies

• Lack of support from other government agencies

• To much interference from the government.

• Etc.

Notes:

1.   This outline is not meant as an exhaustive questionnaire, but as a setup instruction for the case study reports. It is intended as a guide for writing the report on a particular study. Also, it is not necessary to have chapters one to six, for it could be done in three. Chapter one could be a combination of points 1 and 2, chapter 2 the analysis of point 3 and chapter three could be a combination of points 4 to 6. Other combinations or even further divisions are also possible, only the sequence should be followed as indicated above. The questions in each of the points are to serve as an indication of what should be done and not as a precise or exhaustive description. Since the situation in each country might vary, different issues could be more important in one country than in another. The purpose of this outline therefore is to serve as a guide, and adherence to this general outline will help make the different analyses more comparable to each other. 

2    The case study should be as objective as possible and refrain from any rhetoric. The length of each case study paper should ideally be between 10-15 pages, but must not exceed 20 pages.

3.   The factual presentation as mentioned in Section 1, should be kept to the minimum – just an account of the case.  It should also discuss about how the competition authority became aware of the merger or the RBP, eg. pre-notification, reading about it in the newspaper, complaints etc.

4.   In section 3, the researcher may report the analysis of the situation as seen by the competition authority and supplement ‘where possible’ by the researcher’s own comments and information regarding the adequacy and focus the analysis on the adequacy of the procedures and remedies given the situation seen by the agency. However, when such analysis is not done by the agency or the analysis is grossly inadequate, the researcher may make an independent assessment and contrast it with the analysis of the CA (if that has been done).

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