The 18th meeting of Competition Consultative Group (CCG), an informal think tank set up by the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) to solicit feedback and suggestions on competition related matters from the business community, legal community, academia, media, regulatory bodies and the government, was held in Lahore.
The meeting was chaired by Dr Joseph Wilson, senior Member CCP, and also attended by Mueen Batlay, CCP member, and Ikramul Haque Qureshi, Director General/Registrar of the commission. Participants of the meeting included representatives of State Bank of Pakistan, Intellectual Property Organisation, Pakistan Engineering Council, Engineering Development Board, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP), ACCA Pakistan, Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry, United Bank Limited, Saudi Pak Leasing, Linde Pakistan Limited, ICI Pakistan Limited, JS Private Equity, Earnst and Young, Daud Hercules Pakistan Limited, and daily The News.
Dr Joseph Wilson briefed participants on various initiatives, actions, and achievements of CCP. He said CCP had recently been awarded fair rating with ‘‘arrow up’’ by the Global Competition Review (GCR), a London-based leading anti-trust journal, in its latest annual survey of the world’s leading competition authorities. The rating is stated by GCR itself to be a performance indicator recognising that “an agency is considered to make excellent use of its resources and has surpassed its previous accomplishments.”
Dr Wilson quoted GCR as stating that CCP keeps moving from strength to strength. He said GCR in its survey has lauded the dedication of CCP’s enforcement staff, termed the orders of CCP as “well reasoned and informed,” appreciated the leniency decision of CCP, and accredited CCP’s continued success to its chairperson, Rahat Kaunain Hassan, “who has worked hard to improve the core competencies of the authority and guard its precious independence.”
Dr Wilson briefed participants on the 3rd International Conference of CCP held on 29-30 May, 2013 in Islamabad. The conference was attended by 22 competition law experts and senior officials of various competition agencies from America, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Kenya, France, Turkey, Sri Lanka and Portugal. Local participants of the conference included chief executive officers of various multinational and local companies in Pakistan, representatives of business associations, bar councils, academia, media and the government.The meeting was told that the conference discussed various key issues in areas of public procurement, linkage between competition and trade and investment, cartels and the significance of leniency and reward programs, and competition advocacy. He informed the meeting that a workshop for CCP’s enforcement staff was held on 30 May at CCP headquarters in which international experts shared their knowledge with the CCP team.
The CCG members were also informed that CCP recently trained officials of the government of Afghanistan on competition law in a consultative experience-sharing programme organised by the United States (US) Department of Commerce, through its Commercial Law Development Program, in partnership with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and CCP. Besides, the officials of Office of Fair Trade, UK, and Turkish Competition Authority recently visited CCP to train enforcement of CCP.
