The understanding RBB economists have of competitive markets and
competitive processes has regularly been deployed to analyse industries
that are partially liberalised or in the process of liberalisation.
Our team includes experts with specialist experience of telecommunications,
energy and transport issues.
We have worked with incumbents, entrants, and regulators in cases
spanning a range of competition issues, including:
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Vertical separation, essential facilities,
and access requirements |
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Where liberalisation affects a vertically-integrated
industry one critical issue is the extent to which ownership
of assets in the potentially competitive and monopoly segments
of the vertical chain should be split and competitors
granted access to the incumbent’s facilities.
Our
experience in identifying relevant markets and assessing
barriers to entry enables us to identify
rigorously the boundaries between areas of effective
and ineffective competition, while our understanding
of vertical
relationships allows a substantive assessment of the
costs and benefits of ownership separation to be made. |
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De-regulation |
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Deciding when an industry is sufficiently
competitive for regulation to be relaxed is a key task
in liberalised markets. In telecoms, for instance, the
European authorities have identified the competition law
concept of dominance as the decisive threshold for ex ante
regulation. Our familiarity with the key competition law
concepts and expertise in competitive assessment allows
us to offer robust analyses of whether incumbent operators
pass this test. |
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On-going regulation and the development
of competition |
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The impact of on-going regulation can restrict
and distort the development of competition. Our thorough
understanding of the dynamics of the competitive process
and the characteristics of anti-competitive conduct has
enabled us to evaluate the impact of interventions such
as price caps, non-discrimination conditions, and universal
service obligations. |
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Additionally, sectoral regulators have regularly drawn on our
expertise for industry studies and in training their staff on the
principles of competition law economics.
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