Bergen Center for Competition Law and Economics (BECCLE) is pleased to announce the eighth annual BECCLE conference on competition policy on May 30-31 2024 in Bergen, Norway.

This year, the conference will take place at the Norwegian School of Economics. The conference combines invited sessions with accomplished speakers and open sessions with presentations and discussions of original research papers in the fields of competition law and competition economics.

For the open sessions, we now invite submissions of original research papers. Papers should be in the field of competition law and economics. We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers, as well as case studies. Lawyers are especially encouraged to submit papers (working papers or published papers) or extended abstracts.

Time and date: 30th of May at 09:00 until 31st of May at 16:00
Location: Norwegian School of Economics, Helleveien 30
Contact: For any questions, please contact the organising committee by using the following email address: beccle@nhh.no

There is a seminar on Cartel Policy in Nordic Countries back-to-back with the BECCLE Conference. It will be held on Norwegian School of Economics May 29 at 12.30-16.30. You are all welcome to attend, and there is no registration. For more information, see HERE.

Information about the BECCLE conference May 30-31
The BECCLE conference is open also for persons not presenting a paper. There is no conference fee. We offer lunch free of charge to all attendees. We also offer a conference dinner (free of charge) to all presenters.

Update on the program, registration etc. will be published on this web page.

A draft program you can find HERE.

You find information about the transport to and from the airport HERE.

Registration for attending the BECCLE Conference

You can register for attending the BECCLE conference HERE.

Keynote speakers

• Frank Verboven, University of Leuven: ‘Coordinated entry and competition policy’
• Thibault Schrepel, Vrije University of Amsterdam: ‘How technical knowledge can and should inform antitrust analysis’.

Invited sessions

In addition, there will be four invited sessions with three invited speakers on each session:

• Merger policy:
  • Tina Søreide (moderator) (Norwegian Competition Authority)
  • Tommaso Valletti (Imperial College London and BECCLE/NHH))
  • Aviv Nevo (FTC and Univ Pennsylvania)
  • Hans Zenger (European Commission)
• The future of Article 102:
  • Thomas Vinje (chair) (Clifford Chance and BECCLE/UiB))
  • Massimiliano Kadar (Deputy Head of Unit ‘Antitrust Telecoms’, DG COMP, the European Commission)
  • Oliver Bethell (director, EMEA competition at Google)
  • Christian Bergqvist (Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen)
• Market design in power markets:
  • Natalia Fabra (chair) (Universidad Carlos III and BECCLE/NHH)
  • Bert Willems (Tilburg University)
  • Matti Liski (Aalto University School of Business)
• Competition Policy and Labour Markets – are National Competition Authorities on Point?
  • Hans-Petter H. Hanson (chair), Chief Economist, the Norwegian Competition Authority
  • Marta Rocha (TBC), Acting Chief Economist, Autoridade de Concorrência (Portugal)
  • Jacob Schneebacher, Assistent Director of Econometrics, Competition and Markets Authority (United Kingdom)
  • Alexander LP Willén, Professor, Norwegian School of Economics

Submissions of papers

Papers should be submitted as a pdf-file to beccle.papers@nhh.no, no later than February 1, 2024. Submissions should include title, abstract (up to 200 words), author’s name(s) and affiliations, and contact details. Submissions of full papers are recommended, but we will also accept extended abstracts.

Authors of accepted papers will be notified no later than March 10, 2024. All papers will be allocated a discussant, and presenters may be asked to discuss a paper.

You can download the BECCLE 2024 Call for Papers as a pdf file HERE.

Scientific committee

• Özlem Bedre-Defolie (European University)
• Natalia Fabra (Universidad Carlos III)
• Tommaso Valletti (Imperial College London)
• Frode Steen (NHH)
• Tommy Staahl Gabrielsen (U Bergen)
• Ronny Gjendemsjø (U Bergen)
• Ignacio Herrera Anchustegui (U Bergen)
• Bjørn Olav Johansen (U Bergen)
• Eeva Mauring (U Bergen)
• Lars Sørgard (NHH)
• Kurt Brekke (NHH)
• Øivind Anti NIlsen (NHH)
• Ingrid Margrethe Halvorsen Barlund (U Bergen)
• Thomas Vinje (U Bergen)
• Morten Sæthre (NHH)
• Mateusz Mysliwski (NHH)
• Anantha Divakaruni (NHH)
• Odd Rune Straume (U Minho)
• Teis Lunde Lømo (HVL)

Local organising committee

• Paula Navarro Sarmiento (NHH)
• Ole Kristian Dyskeland (NHH)
• John Lilletvedt (U Bergen)
• Camilla Hopsdal (NHH)