Competition Advocacy: from Barriers to Prosperity – Takeaways from 2019 ICN Advocacy Workshop in Kyiv, Ukraine

Competition Advocacy: from Barriers to Prosperity – Takeaways from 2019 ICN Advocacy Workshop in Kyiv, Ukraine – By Matthew Wong (Hong Kong Competition Commission)¹

The biannual ICN Advocacy Workshop was fully completed on March 1, 2019, in the historic city of Kyiv. Under the theme of “Competition Advocacy: from Barriers to Prosperity,” the two-day event gathered more than 100 competition officials, advocacy professionals, lawyers, economists, and academics from about 60 enforcement agencies and organizations. It was co-organized by the Anti-monopoly Committee of Ukraine (“AMCU”) and the Advocacy Working Group co-chairs, i.e. Norwegian Competition Authority (“NCA”), Hong Kong Competition Commission (“HKCC”), and Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (“CCCS”). AMCU Chairman Yuriy Terentiev and HKCC Senior Executive Director Rasul Butt delivered the opening remarks to welcome participants flying in from all corners of the world, from countries as far as Australia and the Philippines to nearby neighboring countries such as Turkey and Lithuania. Representing the co-chairs, Butt gave a brief overview of the work that has been done by the Working Group in 2018-19, including three main work-streams on (1) Advocacy Strategy; (2) Advocacy and Digital Markets; and (3) Impact Assessment, with the Kyiv Workshop as the year’s finale project. With continued, firm support from member agencies and non-governmental advisors (“NGAs”) on those pro