Shaping the ICN’s Next Years

Mar 26, 2013

CPI ICN Column edited by Maria Coppola (U.S. Federal Trade Commission)

Shaping the ICN’s Next Years by Andreas Mundt (ICN, Bundeskartellamt)

ICN Vice Char Andreas Mundt writes this month’s ICN column, sharing his experience working with ICN leadership to address new issues around prioritization, quality control, and the use and implementation of ICN work product.

The ICN is a vibrant organization that can now proudly look back on a successful first decade of existence.¹ The magnitude of its success could not have been anticipated back when the ICN was first initiated.

The ICN started with just 15 founding members. When they sat together for the first time, it was a novel idea: a group of competition authorities was formed to satisfy the need for a forum that would help further cooperation and facilitate convergence. It had become apparent that work did not stop at national boundaries, and that the increase in multinational and cross-border mergers also meant that the competition authorities had to step up their game to do the new situation justice. The ICN had a clear mission in 2001. It was launched with the aim of becoming “a project-oriented, consensus-based, informal network of antitrust agencies from developed and developing countries” that would “address antitrust enforcement and policy issues of common interest and formulate proposals for procedural and substantive convergence through a results-oriented agenda and structure.”²

As an organiz