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27.07.2016 Analysis: Part 1 GCR Global Competition Review
http://globalcompetitionreview.com/surveys/article/41402/analysispart1 1/21
RATING ENFORCEMENT 2016
ANALYSIS: PART 1Wednesday, 6 July 2016 (2 weeks ago)
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Rating Enforcement: Analysis Part 1
It remained the case, throughout 2015, that the authorities with thebiggest staff are among the best in the world; however, there aresome notable outliers in that simple analysis. Year after year, thebiggest authority is always Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service,which covers enormous territory and delves into even small mergers.Other agencies that have responsibility for more than antitrust showhigh total staff numbers. For example, Colombia, which is new to RatingEnforcement, tasks its Superintendence of Industry and Commerce withprotecting consumers and intellectual property as well ascompetition. The US Federal Trade Commission, Japan’s Fair TradeCommission, and the Australian Competition and ConsumerCommission also look after consumer protection in addition to theirantitrust mandate. Meanwhile some authorities, notably in Germanyand France, perform excellently despite not having a huge staff. Butin general, the large workforces being at the top of the table makessense, as they are policing some of the world’s biggest economies.
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For new entrant Romania, a sizeable staff has not necessarilytranslated to effectiveness, even though it sits in the top half of thetable. Singapore, another new entrant, debuts as one of the betterauthorities in the world, despite having just 62 total staff. Chile’sauthority is still an example of an agency that punches above itsweight, remaining one of the best enforcers in Latin America despitehaving only 120 staff.
Table 1: Size by number of staff
Authority No. of staff
Russia 3,260
Colombia 1,200
US (FTC) 1,162
Japan 838
Australia 780
DG Comp 752
US (DOJ) 697
UK 599
Netherlands 54
Korea 535
Spain 515
Poland 464
Canada 394
Mexico 384
Brazil 349
Germany 347
Turkey 340
Romania 313
Italy 287
Denmark 254
Czech Republic 226
New Zealand 209
France 194
Sweden 177
Pakistan 145
Finland 123
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Israel 121
Chile 120
Norway 101
Greece 94
Ireland 86
Portugal 82
Switzerland 76
Lithuania 66
Singapore 62
Latvia 46
Belgium 41
Austria 34
(Click for larger image)
Table 2: Proportion of competition staff
Authority No. of staff
Chile 100
DG Comp 100
India 100
Latvia 100
Norway 100
Switzerland 100
US (DOJ) 100
Belgium 95
Japan 93
Korea 89
Israel 88
France 87
Austria 79
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Austria 79
Russia 78
Portugal 77
Sweden 73
Germany 71
Greece 68
Lithuania 68
Canada 67
Singapore 66
Mexico 65
Romania 63
Brazil 45
Finland 45
New Zealand 44
UK 44
Italy 42
Australia 41
Turkey 36
Denmark 34
Netherlands 32
Spain 32
Poland 31
US (FTC) 30
Czech Republic 26
Ireland 26
Pakistan 21
Colombia 8
There is little correlation between the percentage of total stafffocusing on competition and the performance of the agencies, atleast for the top enforcers. Three of the weaker competition enforcersin our rankings – Ireland, the Czech Republic and Pakistan – havesome of the lowest percentages of total staff working on competition,as many instead are devoted to consumer protection. The mainoutliers are India and Belgium: countries that struggle withcompetition enforcement despite having 100% and 95% respectivelyof their staff focused on it.
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Regarding the best enforcers in the world, there is much lesscorrelation – while the DoJ’s antitrust division has 100% of its stafffocus on competition, the FTC only has 30%, with France andGermany falling in between. Any attempt to determine whether apurely competitionoriented versus a mixed mission that includesconsumer protection is better has to contend with the two USantitrust agencies representing both models and performing well yearafter year.
Table 3: Net employee gain/loss
Authority Competition Staff 2014 Competition Staff 2013 No. gained
Russia 705 514 191
US (DOJ) 130 66 64
Mexico 87 36 51
US (FTC) 81 54 27
DG Comp 83 62 21
India 36 20 16
UK 37 22 15
Australia 41 28 13
Colombia 19 7 12
Denmark 20 8 12
Netherlands 12 4 8
Pakistan 12 4 8
Canada 29 25 4
Singapore 6 2 4
Israel 17 14 3
New Zealand 21 18 3
Norway 9 6 3
Poland 13 10 3
Latvia 9 7 2
Romania 9 7 2
Austria 3 2 1
Brazil 33 32 1
Switzerland 3 2 1
Germany 4 4 0
Spain 8 8 0
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Belgium 1 2 1
Chile 16 17 1
Lithuania 7 8 1
Czech Republic 1 3 2
France 17 19 2
Italy 0 2 2
Sweden 12 14 2
Finland 4 9 5
Greece 0 5 5
Ireland 0 6 6
Portugal 1 7 6
Korea 21 36 15
Turkey 0 15 15
Japan 63 84 21
Last year demonstrated again that massive fluctuations in staff sizeare rare at competition authorities. In general, 2015 was a good yearfor the authorities’ hiring, with most staffs growing in size. Sixantitrust agencies had new employees represent doubledigitpercentages of their staff – most notably Pakistan, which grew 27%to 30 competition enforcers, and Mexico, which added 51 workers toan already robust agency for a 20% growth. But it was not a goodyear for everyone. The Turkish Competition Authority lost about 10%of its staff, and some of the smaller authorities also lost close to thatamount. In those agencies, the effects of gaining or losing even a fewpeople are felt much more than somewhere like the Russianauthority, which constantly has a competition staff of at least 2,000workers.
Notably, the US Department of Justice and Federal TradeCommission continue to grow – each of the agencies’ competitionenforcement staffs grew by almost 10% in fiscal year 2015, as theycontinued to rebound from the budget cuts and hiring freezes of whatantitrust division chief Bill Baer called the “inexplicable” government
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shutdown in 2013. Obviously there is a glaring hole in the FTC’supper echelon, with only three of the five commissioners present. Nosigns indicate that Joshua Wright’s and Julie Brill’s seats will be filledin the midst of a presidential election and Democrat Barack Obama’sfinal year facing a majorityRepublican Senate.
The numbers continue to defy logic in terms of keeping agencies leanand employing a small percentage of administrative staff in acompetition authority (see table 4). At the top of the list – where insome cases the agency has no administrative competition staff – areIndia, Ireland and Turkey, three authorities that have had a toughtime with competition enforcement. At the other end of the list – theagencies that have the highest percentage of administrative staff –are some worldclass enforcers, including the DoJ and DG Comp, aswell as Germany and Spain. As was the case in last year’s RatingEnforcement, Japan remains the outlier in this analysis, with 96% of its777 competition employees working in a nonadministrative role. Ofparticular note, however, is the FTC’s effort to become leaner. In2014 a whopping 42% of the competition staff was administrative; in2015 that number fell to 10%.
Table 4: Percentage of nonadministrative staff
AuthorityPer cent ofcompetition
staff
Per cent of total staff whoare NAC staff (enforcers)
India 100 100
Japan 93 89
Israel 88 83
Latvia 100 83
Chile 100 82
Belgium 95 80
Switzerland 100 80
US (DOJ) 100 78
Norway 100 75
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Austria 79 74
France 87 69
Korea 89 68
Sweden 73 67
Russia 78 65
Lithuania 68 64
Portugal 77 64
Singapore 66 64
DG Comp 100 63
Greece 68 61
Romania 63 61
Canada 67 55
Mexico 65 54
Germany 71 43
Finland 45 41
New Zealand 44 40
Australia 41 38
UK 44 38
Turkey 36 36
Brazil 45 35
Italy 42 34
Denmark 34 32
Netherlands 32 28
Poland 31 28
US (FTC) 30 27
Ireland 26 26
Czech Republic 26 24
Spain 32 21
Pakistan 21 16
Colombia 8 7
Statistics show that very often, less established authorities have ahigher percentage of women working on competition enforcementmatters than those authorities that top our table. For the second yearin a row, Greece, Lithuania and Latvia have the highest percentagesof women enforcers compared to other enforcers. Additionally, theLithuanian Competition Council’s proportion of women to men
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increased by 7% from 2014 to 2015, moving it to the top of the list.It’s important to note that Lithuania and Latvia are two of the smallestagencies in our survey; both have fewer than 50 total competitionenforcement staff. Meanwhile, Korea and Japan appear at the bottomof our list; each boast staff of more than 400 and 700 people,respectively.
Table 5: Proportion of female staff
Authority Per cent female staff Per cent male staff
Lithuania 19 81
Latvia 22 78
Greece 25 75
Russia 38 62
Italy 39 61
Portugal 39 61
Canada 41 59
Colombia 41 59
UK 41 59
Australia 42 58
Spain 42 58
US (FTC) 42 58
Denmark 43 57
Romania 43 57
France 48 52
Poland 48 52
Chile 49 51
Czech Republic 49 51
Norway 49 51
Sweden 49 51
DG Comp 51 49
Finland 51 49
Belgium 52 48
Singapore 52 48
US (DOJ) 55 45
Brazil 56 44
Germany 56 44
Mexico 56 44
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Mexico 56 44
Turkey 56 44
Netherlands 57 43
New Zealand 57 43
Pakistan 57 43
Israel 60 40
Austria 64 36
India 64 36
Switzerland 65 35
Korea 68 32
Japan 80 20
Table 6: Average age of competition enforcers
Authority Average age of nonadmin staff
Korea 45
Belgium 44
Portugal 44
Romania 44
Germany 44
Italy 43.6
Spain 43
Canada 42
Japan 42
Netherlands 42
New Zealand 42
US (FTC) 42
Greece 41
Sweden 41
UK 41
DG Comp 40.5
Finland 40
France 39.4
Austria 39
Poland 39
Switzerland 37.5
Australia 37
Denmark 37
Norway 37
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Norway 37
Chile 36
Colombia 36
Lithuania 36
Russia 36
Czech Republic 35
Israel 35
Latvia 35
Turkey 33.4
Singapore 33
Mexico 32
Pakistan 32
Brazil 31
Practitioners interviewed by GCR frequently commented on theprofessionalism of staff that conduct merger reviews, cartel casesand abuse of dominance investigations. Lawyers tended to givehigher praise to authorities’ units with more experienced enforcers,as they tend to handle cases more efficiently. There also appears tobe a clear correlation between the average age of competitionenforcers and the average tenure of enforcers’ staff; authorities withthe highest average age of employees also tend to have the longestaverage tenures.
For the second year in a row, Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (KFTC)came in first in both categories. Japan, Germany and Italy have alsoconsistently placed high on the two tables, although the Koreanauthority significantly outpaces its peers with an average tenure of 25years. Meanwhile, Mexico and Brazil once again remained at thebottom of the pair of lists. Spain, however, seems to not follow thepattern – the average age of the authority’s staff was 43, while theaverage tenure is relatively low at fourandahalf years, laggingbehind several peer agencies. The majority of authorities reported anaverage staff member age of less than 40, and more than twothirds
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of the countries surveyed had employees with an average tenure offewer than 10 years.
Overall, the average tenure of staff at authorities remained relativelyconsistent from 2014 to 2015, with only minor changes. The meansat agencies including Switzerland, Italy and the European Uniondecreased by a year or less, while Sweden’s and Australia’saverages held steady at six and seven years, respectively. Belgium,Germany and Poland saw modest increases of only a year.
Table 7: Average tenure of enforcers’ staff
Authority Average tenure of nonadmin staff (years)
Korea 25
Japan 16.8
Germany 12
Belgium 11
US (FTC) 11
Canada 10
Italy 10
Poland 10
Romania 10
Finland 9.5
Netherlands 8.5
Turkey 8.4
Portugal 7.9
Australia 7
DG Comp 7
Lithuania 7
New Zealand 7
Greece 6.5
Latvia 6.5
Switzerland 6.5
Sweden 6
Denmark 5.8
Norway 5.5
Chile 5.2
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Chile 5.2
France 5.1
Pakistan 5
Czech Republic 5
Russia 4.5
Spain 4.5
Israel 4
Singapore 3.6
Brazil 3
Colombia 3
UK 1.25
Mexico 1
Table 8: Proportion of enforcers’ staff with more than five years’ experience in the private sector
AuthorityNo. of staff with
more than 5 years inprivate sector
No. ofnon
adminstaff
Per cent nonadmin staff withmore than 5 years' private
sector experience
Portugal 28 63 44
Italy 38 121 31
Latvia 14 46 30
Sweden 35 130 27
France 35 168 21
Greece 12 64 19
Netherlands 33 176 19
Belgium 7 39 18
Russia 423 2553 17
India 16 103 16
Norway 14 101 14
Singapore 5 41 12
Austria 3 27 11
Denmark 8 87 9
Finland 5 55 9
Israel 6 106 6
UK 12 264 5
Lithuania 2 45 4
Chile 5 120 4
Korea 15 475 3
Spain 4 163 2
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Japan 18 777 2
Poland 3 142 2
Germany 5 247 2
Czech Republic 0 58 0
Pakistan 0 30 0
Romania 0 197 0
Turkey 0 122 0
Similar to staff experience at an authority, the number of attorneyswith exposure to the private sector can also improve the competencyand effectiveness of a competition enforcer. Attorneys who haveworked on both sides of the aisle are often better at communicatingwith opposing counsel, particularly when it comes to merger reviews.
Several authorities surveyed by GCR declined to report their number ofstaff with more than five years of private practice experience. Butmany countries did, and those that sit atop the table – Portugal, Italyand Latvia – all saw significant declines in their percentages of nonadministrative staff with more than five years’ private sectorexperience. Portugal’s Competition Authority dropped from 51% lastyear, but remains at the top. Meanwhile, the Latvian and Italianagencies declined from 48% and 40%, respectively. Several otherauthorities – France, Greece, Belgium and Russia, for example –also reported decreases in their numbers.
Meanwhile, India, Israel and Sweden saw noteworthy growth in staffwith fiveplus years of private sector experience. While only havingone such staff member last year, Israel now has six employees with ameaningful amount of private bar experience.
It is important to note that although there are benefits for authoritiesto employ attorneys that have worked in private practice, many wellestablished agencies do not have large numbers of privatesectorsavvy staff. Both Korea and Japan have consistently had the highest
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amount of tenured competition staff over the past few years, but onlythree percent or less of their attorneys have worked in the privatesector for a notable period of time. Overall, a majority of the enforcersreporting to GCR said less than onetenth of their staff has significantprivate practice experience.
Table 9: Highest levels of attrition
Authority No. of staff wholeft
Per cent of NAC staff wholeft
Russia 514 29
Brazil 32 27
Ireland 6 27
Pakistan 4 27
Chile 17 23
New Zealand 18 22
India 20 19
Lithuania 8 19
Finland 9 18
Latvia 7 18
US (FTC) 54 17
Mexico 36 16
France 19 14.1
Israel 14 14
DG Comp 62 13
Portugal 7 13
US (DOJ) 66 12.2
Canada 25 12
Japan 84 11.3
Sweden 14 11
Turkey 15 10
UK 22 10
Australia 28 9
Denmark 8 9
Greece 5 9
Korea 36 9
Norway 6 8
Poland 10 8
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Colombia 7 7.2
Spain 8 7
Austria 2 6
Belgium 2 6
Czech Republic 3 5
Singapore 2 5
Romania 7 4
Germany 4 3
Switzerland 2 3
Italy 2 2.1
Netherlands 4 0.7
Due partly to the sheer size of the staff, Russia always has thehighest rate of attrition in our survey. This year it also topped thetable for the proportion of nonadministrative competition staff todepart, relative to total staff. The move from second to first came notbecause attrition at Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service hasworsened – it actually fell by 1% – but because the authority that hadthe highest percentage of leavers in 2014 improved significantly.After a year in which nearly a third of competition enforcers quitChile’s National Economic Prosecutor’s Office, the agency in 2015reduced its level of attrition to 23%. Admittedly, at a smaller authoritysuch as the FNE, a few people can make a big difference: thenumber of staff departing the agency dropped from 23 in 2014 to 17in 2015, but it brought Chile from first to fifth.
Given that relatively minor changes in staff can appear to make anoutsized difference at smaller agencies, one should be cautiousabout reading too much into the 27% attrition rates at Pakistan’s andIreland’s competition authorities – they lost four and six staffersrespectively in 2015. On the other hand, these also are agencies thathave suffered destabilisation recently: Ireland, through the merger ofits Competition Authority into a dualrole Competition and ConsumerProtection Commission; and Pakistan through a year and a half spent
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without a chairperson.
Mexico’s Federal Economic Competition Commission continues toshow ever more success in retaining its wellrespected staff. Aziz &Kaye partner Luis Alberto Aziz says the authority offers “really highwages compared to private practice.” The workload at COFECE islighter than at the telecommunications regulator, he adds. Aftercutting attrition from 40% in 2013 to 24% in 2014, COFECE broughtthe rate in 2015 all the way down to 16% – a figure historically moretypical of its fivestar neighbours to the north.
Speaking of the US antitrust agencies, the Federal TradeCommission coincidentally had exactly the same number ofdepartures (54) and percentage (17) in 2015 that it did the yearbefore, but the Department of Justice’s antitrust division’s attrition fellfrom 18% in 2014 to 12% in 2015. This disparity between the USFTC and US DoJ appears to be part of a multiyear trend: during2013, the former reported only 22 members of the nonadministrativecompetition staff, or 7%, had left.
Table 10: Proportion of enforcers retiring
Authority No.retiring
No. of staff wholeft
Per cent of NAC who left whoretired
Belgium 1 2 50
Germany 2 4 50
Italy 1 2 50
Romania 3 7 42.9
Canada 7 25 28
Spain 2 8 25
Finland 2 9 22.2
Norway 1 6 16.7
Sweden 2 14 14.3
US (DOJ) 9 66 13.7
US (FTC) 7 54 13
Denmark 1 8 12.5
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Denmark 1 8 12.5
Lithuania 1 8 12.5
Russia 44 514 8.6
Japan 7 84 8.3
Korea 3 36 8.3
France 1 19 5.3
India 1 20 5
Australia 1 28 3.6
DG Comp 1 62 1.6
Austria 0 2 0
Brazil 0 32 0
Chile 0 17 0
Colombia 0 7 0
Czech Republic 0 3 0
Greece 0 5 0
Ireland 0 6 0
Israel 0 14 0
Latvia 0 7 0
Mexico 0 36 0
Netherlands 0 4 0
New Zealand 0 18 0
Pakistan 0 4 0
Poland 0 10 0
Portugal 0 7 0
Singapore 0 2 0
Switzerland 0 2 0
Turkey 0 15 0
UK 0 22 0
Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has seen some of the biggest swingsin the direction of those who departed the competition authority. In2013, 21 of the 36 leavers – 58% – retired, while seven of thoseleaving remained in the civil service. That meant fewer than a quarterwere going into the private sector after their experience at thecommission. The next year, fully twothirds of the departures wereput down to retirement. But last year, half of the agency’s 36departures could potentially go into the private sector with the KFTC
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on their résumé. The shift has come even as the average age of nonadministrative competition staff has crept up, from 41 in 2013 to 45 in2015.
Jae Hwan Lee, a partner at Shin & Kim, notes that an ethics law barssenior civil servants for three years from working in the private sectorin a field related to their government service; junior officials arebarred for only one year. “Therefore, some want to go private beforebeing promoted to senior positions, and that may contribute toexodus of junior or middlelevel civil servants from the government,”Lee says. “This trend seems to be remarkable as it is relatively easierfor the government employees in the KFTC to find appropriate privatepositions.” He and Bae Kim & Lee partner Seong Un Yun both notethat the commission’s January 2013 relocation from Seoul to SeJong City may have led to an exodus from the agency that year. Yunadds that private sector demand for the KFTC experts from theprivate sectors “has grown continuously” at both law firms and largecompanies.
The DirectorateGeneral for Competition at the EuropeanCommission remains an agency through which civil servants rotate,as 95% of staff leaving DG Comp in 2015 remained in civil service –nearly the same rate as 2014. The “revolving door” still has notbecome much of a phenomenon on that side of the Atlantic. Thenagain, civil service also appears to have become more attractiveeven in the US, where between 2014 and 2015, the FTC went from9% to 14% of leavers staying in government, and the DoJ from 17 tonearly 23%. At the latter agency, one could say the example is set atthe top: assistant attorney general Bill Baer left the antitrust divisionin April 2016 to become acting associate attorney general, the thirdhighestranking official at the department.
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Table 11: Proportion of enforcers remaining in civil service
Authority No. remain incivil service
No. of staffwho left
Per cent of leavers remainingin civil service
DG Comp 59 62 95.2
Japan 70 84 83.3
Spain 6 8 75
Ireland 4 6 66
Greece 3 5 60
Austria 1 2 50
Belgium 1 2 50
Italy 1 2 50
Singapore 1 2 50
Sweden 7 14 50
Finland 4 9 44.4
France 8 19 42.1
Korea 14 36 38.9
Czech Republic 1 3 33.3
Norway 2 6 33.3
Netherlands 1 4 25
US (DOJ) 15 66 22.7
Australia 6 28 21.4
Brazil 6 32 18.8
Portugal 1 7 14.3
US (FTC) 7 54 13
Lithuania 1 8 12.5
Poland 1 10 10
Israel 1 14 7.1
Russia 29 514 5.6
UK 1 22 4.6
Chile 0 17 0
Denmark 0 8 0
Germany 0 4 0
India 0 20 0
Latvia 0 7 0
Romania 0 7 0
Switzerland 0 2 0
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