In this article the Author intends to provide a comprehensive picture of the International Competition Network (ICN), a recently established informal forum whereby competition agencies from all over the world, in cooperation with other instances (industry, academia, practitioners), discuss issues of common interest in the exclusive field of antitrust. The purpose of the initiative is to improve world-wide cooperation and thus convergence among competition agencies throughout the world, as well as to encourage developing countries to enforce a sound competition policy. After describing the main features of the Network, as well as the outcome of its first Annual conference held last September in Naples, the Author focuses on some sensitive issues. In this respect, while recognising that ICN is probably the most important and successful initiative which has been lately launched in the field of antitrust international cooperation, a number of potential problems are identified. Among them, the most serious risk that ICN runs is that it will become an initiative monopolised by a few developed countries discussing issues of exclusive interest to them. An effort should therefore be made to further reinforce the participatory nature of the initiative. A second risk is that ICN recommendations will not be adequately implemented by its members.

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In a string of recent merger decisions, culminating in the Dow/DuPont case, the European Commission has profoundly revisited its traditional analysis of innovation and, ultimately, introduced what some authors have labeled “a novel theory of harm in EU merger policy.” According to this theory, the Commission does not look at harm to innovation on a specific product market in which parties are developing similar pipeline products, but adopts a general assessment of harm to innovation, unrelated to a specific product market and without considering potential anticompetitive effects on this basis. The purpose of this article is to show that over the last few years, the European Commission has been progressively departing from a “traditional” theory of harm in its assessment of mergers affecting innovation. In particular, we argue that the novel theory of harm developed in Dow/DuPont, based on a generic prejudice to innovation, is the landing place of a long journey through which the Commission has progressively altered the analytical framework applicable to traditional cases affecting pipeline products/potential competitors. And while this stance may be inspired by a legitimate policy goal, it brings the Commission on a collision route with the principles of causation and symmetry governing European Union merger control analysis.

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