美国AAI第一次国际反垄断圆桌会议||全球反垄断中的关键问题:礼让、知识产权和正当程序(上)
2017年2月8日,美国反垄断协会(AAI)举行了第一次国际反垄断的圆桌会议,题为“全球反垄断中的关键问题:礼让、知识产权和正当程序”。50多个不同的专家参与了一整天的活动和互动,他们分别来自商业、政府、学术界、实务界,以及还有一些公共利益共同体等。演讲嘉宾、小组成员和观众讨论了一些重要的法律、经济问题以及影响国际竞争政策的政治发展问题。其中,重点主题包括:(1)域外适用规则,礼让原则,以及体现在最近修订的联邦贸易委员会和反托拉斯国际执法合作的反垄断指南的合作实践;(2)不同国家的知识产权反垄断的处理方法,包括有关标准必要专利(SEP)和非执业实体(NPE);和(3)对外国司法管辖区的正当程序标准和改革途径的问题的关注。
On February 8, 2017, the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) held its first International Antitrust Roundtable, entitled Critical Issues in Global Antitrust: Comity, Intellectual Property, and Due Process. The interactive, full-day program brought together more than 50 diverse experts from business, government, academia, private practice, and the public interest community. Guest speakers, panelists and audience members discussed important legal, economic, and political developments affecting international competition policy. Key topics included (1)the extraterritoriality rules, comity principles, and cooperation practices reflected in recently revised Federal Trade Commission and Antitrust Division Antitrust Guidelines for International Enforcement and Cooperation;(2)varying international approaches to the antitrust treatment of intellectual property rights, including with respect to standard essential patents (SEPs) and non-practicing entities (NPEs); and (3) concerns over foreign jurisdictions’ due process standards and pathways to reform.
Year in Review (年度回顾)
AAI的主席Diana Moss通过阐述AAI在国际舞台的目标和介绍当天的程序开始了一天的会议。韦恩州立大学法学院的Stephen Calkins教授随后上台,发表了一份题为“国际反垄断年度观察”的演讲。他的演讲介绍了美国和外国竞争体制之间的分歧和趋同的指标,并得出最近的事态发展已混合的结论。一方面,有意义的私人和刑事执法制度(历史上主要是美国现象),已经出现在世界各地。此外,各地竞争当局表示尽管存在各种竞争理论,他们依然关注主要跨国企业如英特尔、谷歌和高通的行为。世界各地的竞争制度在延期支付和制药行业过度定价的做法方面也发现了类似的做法。
另一方面,世界各国在转售价格维持和卡特尔促进实践的处理方式中的分歧是显而易见的。美国已经放开了对这些行为的处理,而其他国家却开始打击。各国的差异也明显体现在滥用市场支配地位的行为标准,以及政府积极介入市场以促进竞争的做法上,这些做法主要发生在如英国、荷兰和希腊等国家。最后,竞争当局的分歧还体现在对隐私和大数据竞争问题的处理上,欧盟、德国和荷兰当局在这方面显得更积极。
Calkins教授还审查了美国律师协会最近关于国际反垄断过渡报告的建议,其中包括了有争议的建议,即美国机构应直接干预外国诉讼程序以促进正当程序标准。除此之外,他还提出了美国如何在特朗普政府期间进行外交事务的问题,以及这对美国在国际竞争共同体中的可信度会产生怎样的影响。
Diana Moss, President of AAI, began the day by describing AAI’s goals in the international arena and providing a brief overview of the program. Professor Stephen Calkins, Wayne State University Law School, then took the stage to deliver a slide presentation entitled Observations on the Year in International Antitrust. His remarks examined the indicators of divergence and convergence among U.S. and foreign competition regimes and concluded that recent developments have been mixed. On the one hand, meaningful private and criminal enforcement regimes, which historically were primarily U.S. phenomena, have been emerging around the world. Moreover, various competition authorities have expressed shared concerns about the behavior of major multinationals like Intel, Google, and Qualcomm, albeit under a variety of anticompetitive theories. Competition regimes around the world also have found common cause in concern over pay-for-delay settlements and excessive pricing practices in the pharmaceutical industry.
On the other hand, divergence is evident in the world’s treatment of resale price maintenance and cartel facilitating practices. The U.S. has liberalized its treatment of these practices while other countries have cracked down. Divergence is also apparent in variations among countries’ abuse of dominance standards, as well as certain countries’ willingness to intervene in markets to actively promote competition without a finding of infringement, as has occurred in the UK, Netherlands, and Greece. Finally, competition authorities have diverged in their comparative embrace of privacy and big data as competition concerns, with authorities in the EU, Germany, and the Netherlands being more active.
Professor Calkins also examined the American Bar Association’s recent transition report recommendations on international antitrust, including the controversial suggestion that U.S. agencies should directly intervene in foreign proceedings to promote due process standards. Among other things, he raised questions about how America will conduct itself in foreign affairs during the Trump Administration, and what effect this might have on American credibility in the international competition community.
Antitrust and the Golden Rule: Assessing the Revisions to the FTC/DOJ International Guidelines
(反垄断法和黄金法则:评估修订联邦贸易委员会、司法部国际指南)
当天的第一个讨论版块集中在反垄断法和竞争法的跨境应用问题上。小组成员包括Axinn管理合伙人John Briggs,律师Veltrop和Harkrider,纽约大学法学院贸易法规教授Eleanor Fox和Walter J. Derenberg,美国司法部反垄断部门上诉科长Kristen Limarzi,以及哈佛大学Weatherhead国际事务中心和欧盟委员会DG竞争并购控制处的前任领导Henri Piffaut。
在导论中,该小组的主持人、AAI的副总法律顾问Randy Stutz,解释了国家正越来越多地决定他们的竞争法超越领土边界适用的问题,这迫使全球竞争当局开展一场“通常必须使用相对笨拙的工具的相互画线运动”。该板块的讨论集中在三个话题,即域外适用规则,礼让原则和合作实践。
讨论始于《谢尔曼法》的跨境管辖下的《对外贸易垄断改进法案》(FTAIA)。小组成员审查了哪些行为是根据《谢尔曼法》,在FTAIA的法定语言下是“涉及进口贸易”或“直接”影响美国贸易“产生索赔”的。除此之外,小组成员讨论了在界定行为超出了直接销售到美国,可能“涉及”进口贸易方面,国际指南是否走得太远,还是远远不够。他们还讨论了外国行为对国内的影响是否应该被视为“直接”的近因标准或直接后果标准,一个专家小组认为直接后果标准不当引入了时间方面的考量,而不是着眼于两者之间的密切关系。
其他小组成员的讨论集中在FTAIA中私人当事人的地位问题上。一位专家反对Empagran最高法院的决定,认为FTAIA并不区分公共和私人债权而只涉及建立管辖权的问题。
小组成员还从礼让的角度讨论了美国的法律体系。一名专家解释说,许多外国人认为美国法律系统过于扩张,以至于他们不得不着手保护自己在美国法院对外国的行为。另一位专家反驳说,在全球化的世界中,美国的做法会越来越普遍的。
Fox教授的演讲提出,建立域外适用的最佳实践标准规则,将可能导致有所收敛。另一位小组成员质疑这种收敛能否成功。即使竞争法的跨司法管辖的表面上是相似的,专家认为,不同的政府可能有完全不同的优先考虑和态度,其中包括有关优先风险1型和2型错误。
最后,小组讨论了国际执法合作作为一种形式的“实用礼仪”或“实际域外适用”的作用。在其他方面,小组成员评估了与欧洲做法相比,美国国际指南的合作方式,探讨了对外贸易政策的影响,包括特朗普政府在国际合作方面“美国第一”的豪言。
随后,讨论被开放到房间。一位美国法庭辩护的与会者注意到许多欧盟公民喜欢美国法院系统的原因是由于其公平性。一位以前探讨过外国人厌恶美国法院问题的小组成员认为,即使是那些喜欢美国法院公平的外国政党也不会喜欢它在海外行使权力的方式。
另一位与会者提出了一个问题,即什么行为影响“国家的竞争利益”。在一个中间装配产品的世界里,许多卡特尔可以提高一国的货物价格而不损害该国销售货物的竞争。专家普遍认为,一国竞争损害位点并不排除另一个下游的反竞争效应,并且不应使这些影响在下游国家不可追踪。
在回答与会者和主持人的问题时,专家组还讨论了由重叠和重复的罚款与补救措施造成的过度威慑的风险,以及基于FTAIA和Illinois Brick间接购买者规则而拒绝原告提起诉讼而导致的低度威慑的风险。
The first panel of the day focused on the cross-border application of antitrust and competition law. Panelists included John Briggs, Managing Partner at Axinn, Veltrop and Harkrider, LLP, Eleanor Fox, the Walter J. Derenberg Professor of Trade Regulation at NYU Law School, Kristen Limarzi, the Appellate Section Chief of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and Henri Piffaut, a Fellow at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and former Head of Unit for Merger Control at DG Competition in the European Commission.
In introductory remarks, the panel moderator, Randy Stutz, Associate General Counsel of the AAI, explained that countries are increasingly being called upon to determine the applicability of their competition laws beyond their territorial borders. This forces the world’s competition authorities into “a mutual line drawing exercise, which often has to be done using relatively clumsy instruments.” The panel focused on three of those instruments, namely extraterritoriality rules, comity principles, and cooperation practices.
The discussion began with the extraterritorial reach of the Sherman Act under the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act (FTAIA). The panelists examined what conduct is reachable under the Sherman Act on grounds that it “involves import commerce” or has a “direct” effect on U.S. commerce that “gives rise to a claim” under the FTAIA’s statutory language. Among other things, the panelists discussed whether the agencies’ international guidelines go too far, or not far enough, in defining conduct beyond direct sales into the United States that may “involve” import commerce. They also discussed whether a domestic effect from foreign conduct should be deemed “direct” under a proximate cause standard or an immediate consequence standard, with one panelist arguing that the immediate consequence standard improperly introduces a temporal aspect to the determination rather than focusing on the closeness of the connection between the two.
Other Panelists focused on the standing of private parties under the FTAIA. One panelist spoke out against the Supreme Court decision in Empagran, arguing that the FTAIA was not meant to distinguish between public and private claims but rather only to establish jurisdiction.
Panelists also discussed the reach of the American legal system from a comity perspective. One panelist explained that many foreigners see the American system as overreaching and presumptuous. They are dumbstruck at having to defend themselves in U.S. court for foreign conduct. Another countered that the U.S. approach is becoming more common in the globalized world.
Professor Fox presented slides proposing criteria for establishing best practices for extraterritoriality rules that would hopefully lead to convergence. Another panelist was skeptical that convergence could ever succeed. Even where competition laws across jurisdictions are ostensibly similar, the panelist argued, different governments may have fundamentally different priorities and attitudes, including with respect to prioritizing risks of Type 1 and Type 2 error.
Finally, the panel discussed the role of cooperation among international enforcers as a form of “practical comity” or “practical extraterritoriality.” Among other things, panelists evaluated the U.S. international guidelines approach to cooperation relative to the European approach and discussed the impact of foreign trade policy, including the Trump Administration’s “America First” pronouncements, on international cooperation.
The discussion was then opened to the room. One attendee rose in defense of U.S. courts, noting that many EU citizens love the American court system because of its fairness. The panelist who had spoken previously of foreign distaste for American courts maintained that even foreign parties who like the fairness of American courts nonetheless dislike the way they exercise their powers overseas.
Another attendee raised a question as to what conduct affects “national competition interests.” In a world with intermediate and component goods, many cartels can raise the prices of a country’s goods without harming competition around goods sold in that country. Panelists generally agreed that the locus of competitive injury in one country does not preclude downstream anticompetitive effects in another and should not render those effects unremediable in the downstream country.
In response to questions from both attendees and the moderator, the panel also discussed the risks of over-deterrence caused by overlapping and duplicative fines and remedies, as well as the risk of under-deterrence caused by the denial of standing to private plaintiffs based on the FTAIA and the Illinois Brick indirect purchaser rule.
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