International Network of Civil Society Organisations on Competition (INCSOC)

Background

In the changing global scenario, countries are liberalising and regulatory policies are being formulated to create an enabling environment for market forces to operate. At the same time as a consequence of greater global concentration of ownership, consumers worldwide have become more vulnerable to anti-competitive abuses by corporations. For example, there has been a sharp increase in the extent of global cartel activity, which are being penalized by OECD country agencies, while the developing country agencies and other interlocutors are hardly aware of such acts.

Thus need for a strong and effective competition policy can hardly be overemphasised.  Fortunately, governments all over the world have been showing increasing interest in competition law and policy. As of now there are about 90 countries with a competition law and about half of them have adopted it only during the last one decade. But having a competition law is one thing and its effective implementation is another matter.  

As both competition policy and consumer policy directly regulate or affect the activities of corporations, it becomes difficult to implement them as the corporations are resourceful as well as well organised and act as a powerful constituency against these policies and laws. Consumers, the counter-vailing force, on the other hand are relatively unorganised and lack resources, hence consumer welfare losses are high.

Individual consumer groups in many countries have played an active role in developing a support base for the creation of both consumer and competition laws and their enforcement, and very often they have been at the forefront of the campaign to enact these laws. Where they have not, the laws have been much less effective both in terms of contents and enforcement. Moreover, as no policy implementation is free from the influence of lobbying, in the absence of adequate lobbying from the consumer interest groups and with strong business lobbying, enforcement of competition law very often fails to maintain the balance between business and consumer interests.

Nevertheless, competition policy issue has received a higher attention globally than ever before. When the corporations are more global in nature and anti-competitive practices are global, there has to be consumer-oriented competition advocacy at the global level.

Competition enforcement agencies of different countries of the world have responded to such situation through the formation of International Competition Network. Similarly, the Global Competition Forum (GCF) of competition lawyers has been created under the auspices of the International Bar Association. Members of the WTO are also considering a multilateral agreement on competition. To complement such initiatives it is essential to establish a similar network at the civil society level, whose voice on the global stage is not as strong as is desirable. 

Although competition policy is closer to the heart of the consumer organizations, it needs to be recognised that the consumer movement itself is not so strong in many countries, especially in the developing world. At the same time it has also been observed that other civil society organisations (CSOs) are taking greater interest in economic issues in general and competition policy issues in particular.

Thus a need has been articulated at several fora to raise the consumer voice in international debates. It has therefore been proposed by some active consumer organizations in both the developed and the developing world to float a network, to be named as, “International Network of Civil Society Organisations on Competition” (INCSOC).

Mission and Objectives

The Mission of the network will be “to promote and maintain a healthy competition culture around the world by coalition building among civil society and other interested organisations”. This will be achieved by pursuing the following objectives:

•          To build coalitions of civil society organisations interested in promoting a healthy competition cultures;

•          To build capacity of the CSOs on competition policy issues, especially to enable them to engage in    
           competition advocacy at different levels

•          To catalyse research and networking on competition issues and create better understanding on them .

•          To liaise with all relevant institutions for sharing of experiences and promoting mutual learning on 
           competition issues.

Membership

INCSOC will have two types of membership.

The primary institutional members will be public interest civil society, consumer organizations, research and academic institutions, and their networks who are interested in or work in the area of competition policy, to be designated as ‘members’.

Competition enforcement agencies of national governments or supranational agencies and intergovernmental bodies and regional bodies, and donor agencies will be eligible for associate membership of the network.

A provision for individual membership, which could include academicians, lawyers, parliamentarians, mediapersons, and other stakeholder groups with interest in competition issues will also be made, also as associate members.

While the INCSOC’s voting membership will comprise mainly of civil society organizations, associate members can be invited to join the working groups.

There is no formal membership application, but merely an intent can be sent to cuts@cuts.org, and their names will be entered in the two rosters (Members and Associate Members) to be maintained at CUTS.

Activities

The activities of the network will revolve around the objectives of coalition building, networking and capacity building on competition issues, primarily of the civil society organizations, but secondarily of other stakeholder groups. This will be achieved through sharing of experiences and information dissemination projects. The network will work mainly through working groups. The following five working groups are proposed to be formed in the first instance:

Membership and Fundraising Working Group: To admit members and manage their affairs and to raise fund for its activities.

Capacity Building Working Group: To build capacity of the CSO membership to enable them to engage in competition advocacy at appropriate levels, and also to explore funding opportunities for supporting their activities.

Merger Review Working Group: To take up projects and build capacity of the CSOs to make appropriate interventions in merger review process in different jurisdictions.

Restrictive Business Practices Working Group: To take up projects on related issues and help CSOs to detect such practices in market place and take them to appropriate institutions for remedial measures.

Campaigns and Policy Working Group: To project the image and programmes of the Network to reach out to the large constituency of people, who are involved in issues related to competition and consumer policy.

The network will maintain close contact with the ICN, GCF (IBA), UNCTAD, OECD, WTO, World Bank and other such bodies.

Management

The management of the affairs of the network will rest with a steering committee to be elected by its members during its annual conference. Initially, the first steering committee will be set up by CUTS after wide consultations among various stakeholders. 

For the time being the network will not have any permanent secretariat. The overall coordination of the activities of the network will be carried out of the office of the Chairperson of the steering committee. Similarly, the activities of different working groups will be coordinated from the respective Working Group Chairman’s office. The steering committee of the network may decide to have its permanent secretariat whenever it may deem fit.

Mr. Allan Asher, Consumers Association, London has kindly accepted to be the Chairperson of the Steering Committee.

All committees and working groups will have a balance of representation from the North and the South, and among regions.

Launch

The Network was announced at the Asia Pacific Seminar on Competition Policy held at New Delhi on 26^th November, where many civil society organizations evinced positive interest. The Network was formally launched at Geneva on Feburary 19^th, 2003 at the CUTS Symposium on Competition Policy and Pro-Poor Development.