Remarks by President McAleese at the Conference of the Association of European Comp. Law Judges
Dublin Castle, Dublin, Friday, 17 June, 2011
Dia dhíbh a chairde, thank you for the warm welcome and the invitation from your President, Supreme Court Justice the Hon. Mr. Liam McKechnie and your Vice-President the Hon. Mr. Nicholas Kearns, President of the High Court. I am delighted to extend the traditional Irish welcome, céad míle fáilte - one hundred thousand welcomes - to all the members of the Association of European Competition Law Judges. Welcome to Dublin for what I hope will be an exciting and energizing conference.
I visit a lot of schools and the topic of future careers often comes up. Hard though it may be to believe it I have yet to come across a schoolchild who has had the ambition to be a Competition Law Judge. I have met a lot who wanted to be X-Factor judges or to compete in the Eurovision song competition but that’s a different kind of competition altogether. I have met a lot who wanted to be world-class soccer players and the only connection between that and law is that it is said that law is the only game where the best players get to sit on the bench.
That is in fact a matter of considerable reassurance to the public that the finest legal brains are being brought to bear on matters as complex, fraught and important as Competition Law. It is also reassuring to see the work that this Association has invested for the past decade in ensuring that right across the European Union there is consistency in the application and development of Competition Law.
Since May 2004 thanks to EC Regulation 1/2003, the role of national judicial authorities has taken on a greater prominence in this field. That role has also highlighted the fact that since the European Commission is itself a competition authority the Commission may not be an appropriate convenor of gatherings such as this and so it has fallen to you as judges to create and evolve this organisation as a forum for the discussion of concerns and the teasing out of common problems and the exchange of experience, wisdom and insight, that otherwise might be wastefully constricted in its use and effectiveness. Whilst the European Union and the various Member States are responsible for the development of EU and national policies on competition, it is you, the judiciary, who are responsible for ensuring the correct and coherent application of the law and that vital work can only be massively enriched by the direct face-to-face exchanges, discussions and debates you will have here.
The role of the judiciary in maintaining the integrity of competition law may not always be well understood by the public but it is a crucial safeguard of the public interest. Competition law serves to protect the economy, industry, businesses and consumers. It is an underlying principle of the European single market and when it functions healthily it is a driver of cost effectiveness, innovation, consumer choice. When it functions unhealthily in a brutal “survival of the fittest” model or a race to the bottom at all costs it can of course ironically be a conduit to unhealthy monopoly or dominant market positions or dangerous cycles of boom and bust which are perilous if left unchecked as we know to our cost. So we have regulatory regimes, rules, laws designed to hold in a workable and equitable tension those delicate balances.
From an Irish perspective, your conference is particularly timely. This is a tough time for businesses and many are driving down costs, seeking to be innovative in order to stay in the market place. It can be tempting in difficult market conditions for producers, manufacturers and suppliers to seek the safety net of a cartel for the kind of short-term advantage that does serious long-term damage to the national economy.
In Ireland, the system of competition law enforcement for cartel actions differs to most other EU countries as they are prosecuted as crimes rather than civil offences with the higher levels of proof that criminal prosecutions require. We have seen a number of successful prosecutions of cartels by the Irish Competition Authority in recent years with the Irish courts handing down increasingly stiffer fines for breaches of competition law. In fact this Associations’ President, the Hon. Mr. Justice McKechnie when delivering judgment in such a case in March 2009 warned that “… the serving of a custodial sentence was near at hand” and that “if the first generation of carteliers have escaped prison, the second and present generation almost certainly will not.”
The tragic consequences in the 1930s of the deeply protectionist responses to the Great Depression have been well rehearsed and indeed Ireland’s own economic history is one in which a culture of protectionist policies severely limited economic growth. It is only since the start of the 1960s when Ireland abandoned those policies in favour of international engagement and trade that we have seen our economy grow in a meaningful way and despite current economic circumstances, we remain one of the world’s most open economies. A significant part of the growth achieved over the following decades can be attributed to the impact of international competition and our need to respond to it and develop a competitive edge. We have seen at first hand that competition drives new products, new technologies, new businesses, new efficiencies and most importantly, new economic growth. Regaining our competitiveness is a key element in our national strategy to return to sustainable growth and thankfully recent encouraging export figures gives particular cause for hope. As an open, export-led trading economy, Ireland and Irish businesses appreciate that competition policy is key to the development and operation of efficient markets and we understand more than many the value of strong competition law and its consistent application by you and your colleagues. It is no small feat to create a single market of 500 million people from 27 different legal systems and I thank each of you here today for the way in which you have helped to create the conditions in which Irish products and services are sold freely throughout Europe and in which goods and services from countries bordering the Mediterranean to the Arctic can easily be consumed and enjoyed in Ireland.
The sheer variety of legal systems and methods that prevail throughout the EU has created a very testing environment for your work, yet it has been more than vindicated since the seminal Cassis de Dijon in 1979, for we have seen the single market develop and flourish in a way that has been overwhelmingly positive for all European citizens.
Your objectivity and impartiality, your pursuit of consistency conduce to an orderliness and an equilibrium that is essential to the proper functioning of the single market. From cartels to anti-trust issues, from mergers and acquisitions to deliberations on state aids, you tread on powerful interests, you scrutinise and probe issues that are often labyrinthine in their intricacy. It is difficult and demanding work but it matters greatly to Europe’s citizens though they may not always know or appreciate its import. We rely on your vigilance on our behalf. This conference is strong evidence of your commitment to the sacred trust you hold on behalf of the citizens of the European Union. I hope that this Dublin gathering will help you individually and collectively in your mission of guarding the integrity and the independence of Europe’s Competition Law Judges no matter where in the Union they serve. I hope too that in the sharing and listening, the probing, questioning and analysing you do here that your Association’s vocation as a champion of a competition law that is evenly and fairly applied throughout the Union will be strengthened and galvanized anew.
May you return home with new ideas and renewed vigour for your important work.
Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir. Thank You.