Nov 21 2023 53 mins
Sustainability and carbon neutrality have become one of the world’s foremost priorities. As a result, companies may potentially employ sustainability agreements with their competitors. However, these agreements may fall afoul of competition law. In July 2023 and October 2023 respectively, the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority have released guidelines to differentiate between sustainability agreements that are anticompetitive, and those which are permissible. In this episode, Rach speaks with Benoît Durand about the potential intersections between competition law and sustainability agreements, and the tension between maintaining a healthy competitive market and enabling the cooperation necessary to advance global goals. Benoît Durand is a Partner at RBB Economics. RBB Economics is a global leader in competition economics, which works alongside law firms to advise companies in the context of competition law investigations by enforcers or in the context of litigation in front of courts. He has a PhD in Economics from Boston College and has over 20 years of experience in competition economics, particularly in the context of competition law investigations, and he has advised companies like Nespresso, Google, Amazon, British Airways and DuPont, among others. He was previously the Director of Economic Analysis at the UK’s Competition Commission (which is now part of the UK Competition and Markets Authority) in London, and a member of the Chief Economist Team at the Directorate General for Competition at the European Commission, in Brussels.
Autogenerated transcript available at: https://rss.com/podcasts/oulp/1235124/