International and Comparative Competition Law and Policy Program

About the program

Competition/antitrust law plays a significant role in the economy of individual countries, their welfare, and the welfare of individuals, especially consumers. For instance, anticompetitive behaviour leads to higher prices and less innovation and services for consumers, and also to an unwelcomed usage of data in digital markets.

Competition law significantly impacts the ways in which companies and other entities, including multinational corporations, conduct their businesses. It influences the economic markets and their concentrations, and can also influence relationships between individual states.

Although competition law is a jurisdiction-based area of law, with each country having its own national competition-law regime (where established), competition, as an economic process, can occur both nationally and internationally. The digital economy in which we live has been increasing the internationalisation of various relevant markets, as well as introducing new international issues for competition law and policy.

Therefore, competition law and its policy have a significant tendency to be influenced by other competition law regimes, and competition law authorities cooperate at various levels, from more formal to less formal. With our world becoming more and more digitalised and global, and our trade becoming more international, the focus on international aspects of competition law and policy and a comparative approach to these is crucial and even inevitable.

The International and Comparative Competition Law and Policy Program includes LIDC (International League of Competition Law) scholarly projects and activities, which are aimed at globally important competition-law issues and internationally hot topics on competition law and policy. The Program affiliates the local LIDC Australian members group.

The ‘International and Comparative Competition Law and Policy Program’ will address a wide range of competition-law issues, which have international or comparative characteristics while, in most instances, combining both international and comparative elements. These issues inform the topics of the carefully designed research projects, including LIDC projects.

The Program brings together academics, practitioners, regulators and post-graduate students with the aim of enhancing the knowledge of and practices in competition law and policy and its theories, as well as the areas of law related to competition law within the focus of LIDC.

The carefully selected research projects under this program will lead to high-quality scholarship dealing with internationally significant issues of competition law and beyond. The aim of the projects will be to increase the awareness of these issues, providing solutions and influencing the reform of law, policy and approaches to competition law.

Sustainable competition law in digital economy
The notion of ‘power’
Bargaining power and the rights of consumers and patients
LIDC Projects

About LIDC

The International League of Competition Law (LIDC) is a longstanding international association created in 1930. It serves as a unique platform for exchanging and developing ideas and knowledge on competition law, intellectual property law and unfair competition law.

LIDC currently comprises 18 national chapters and over 800 members internationally. Its members consist of leading lawyers from private law firms, in-house counsel, regulators and academics. Some national chapters also have undertakings as their members.

LIDC Main Activities

Each year, the LIDC holds an international congress that comprises an interesting program of panels and speaker events, as well as the discussion of two questions related to competition law, intellectual property law and/or unfair competition. Prior to the annual congress, national chapters or individual members are invited to submit a national report on the way(s) in which the particular issue is dealt with in their jurisdiction. These national reports are synthesised into an in-depth international report, which is presented at the annual congress, and the proposed recommendations and solutions to the questions are debated and voted upon at the General Assembly held at the end of the annual congress.

The national and international reports, together with the resolutions adopted during the General Assembly, are published by Springer and the LIDC in a series entitled “LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition”, and sent to national and international enforcement authorities.

Additionally, national chapters and individual members participate in “transnational working groups” to share their knowledge and foster discussion on specific topics of interest and they also organise their own national activities. From time to time, the LIDC submits position papers to the European Commission and other enforcement agencies, as the case may be, on specific issues or commercial practices.

LIDC Book Series

LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition.

LIDC Australia & New Zealand

The LIDC Australia and New Zealand was fully approved by the LIDC as a chapter and was officially welcomed to the LIDC family in November 2024. LIDC Australia and New Zealand’s object is “the promotion and development of competition law, unfair competition and intellectual property laws in Australia and New Zealand, through education, study and research, for public benefit,” (Constitution of LIDC Australia and New Zealand). It brings together persons from Australia and New Zealand with a serious and active interest in competition law and/or intellectual property law and/or consumer law (unfair competition).

LIDC Australia & New Zealand’s Events

E-conference “Merger Control Law in Australia and New Zealand”, February 2025

Publications

Barbora Jedlickova, Brenda Marshall and Mark Burdon, ‘The Role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission regarding the Digital Economy’ in LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition (Springer, Heidelberg, 2023).
Barbora Jedlickova and Julie Clarke, ‘Antitrust Analysis of Online Sales Platforms: Australia’ in LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition (Springer, Heidelberg, 2018).
Julie Clarke and Barbora Jedlickova, ‘The Pharmaceutical Market: Australia’ in LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition (Springer, Heidelberg, 2017).
Barbora Jedlickova, Julie Clarke and Sitesh Bhojani, ‘The consistency and compatibility of transactional resolutions of antitrust proceedings with the due process and fundamental rights of the parties in Australia’ in LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition (3^rd series, Springer, Heidelberg, 2016).
Barbora Jedlickova and Julie Clarke, ‘Grocery Markets and Efficiency of Antitrust and Liability Issues in relation to Corporate Social Responsibility’ in LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition (2^nd series, Springer, Heidelberg, 2015).

Members

Australia

Marcus Bezzi

Chief Advisor

Competition Taskforce

Markets Group

The Treasury, Australian Government

Canberra, Australia

E: Marcus.Bezzi@TREASURY.GOV.AU

Dr Alex Bruce

Senior Lecturer

Law School, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

E: alexdpbruce@gmail.com

Professor Julie Clarke

Professor of Competition Law
Associate Dean (Melbourne Law Masters)
Associate Dean (Digital Technologies)
Director of Studies, Global Competition and Consumer Law speciality
Associate Director, Melbourne Centre for Commercial Law (Consumer Law and Policy)
Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
E: julie.clarke@unimelb.edu.au

Jacqueline Downes

Partner, Practice Group Leader, Competition, Consumer & Regulatory

Allens

Sydney, Australia

E: Jacqueline.Downes@allens.com.au

Associate Professor Arlen Duke

Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
E:a.duke@unimelb.edu.au

Professor Allan Fels

Professorial Fellow

A former Chair of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)

Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
E: afels@unimelb.edu.au

Professor Brent Fisse

Brent Fisse Lawyers

Sydney, Australia

E: brentfisse@gmail.com

Professor Deborah Healey
Director, China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre
UNSW Law and Justice
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
E: d.healey@unsw.edu.au
Dr Barbora Jedlickova

Senior Lecturer

Law School, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

E: b.jedlickova@law.uq.edu.au