17 August 2021, Budapest – Over the past six months, the OECD-GVH Regional Centre for Competition in Budapest organised two virtual seminars on competition law, published newsletters on the topics of abuse of dominance in digital markets and bid rigging. This year, a new initiative of the ROK was launched, which elaborates on the building blocks of competition law in a series of educational videos both in English and Russian.
The OECD-GVH Regional Centre for Competition in Budapest (RCC), founded in 2005, is an important partner for Central, East and South-East European countries in the development of competition policy, competition law and competition culture, and in facilitating the work of competition authorities. The training centre contributes to improving competition and thus economic growth in the beneficiary countries. Through the RCC, Hungary and the GVH play a leading role in participating in the development of economies in transition and providing technical assistance within the region.
As part of the program for the first half of 2021, the RCC organized two virtual seminars on competition law for the primary beneficiary competition authorities, where the centre welcomed 135 participants from 21 countries and 22 expert speakers from 10 countries.
The three-day virtual seminar in March was entitled Tackling Bid Rigging in Public Procurement. One of the main aims of the virtual meeting was to present the key components of effective investigation of cartels, methods for detecting and preventing cartels, and tools for effective cooperation between competition authorities and public procurement bodies.
The second seminar was held in May on the topic of Market Studies, which presented this essential tool of competition law and policy. The first day of the seminar focused on the objectives of market studies and on how its results can be used to address various competition issues. The second day of the seminar explored the process of market studies and answered questions about effective techniques for conducting market studies.
The first issue of the RCC newsletter of this year published both in English and Russian entitled Competition Policy in Eastern Europe and Central Asia focused on the abuse of dominance in digital markets. The second issue, in July, deals with the question of tackling bid rigging. In 2021, a new initiative of the RCC was launched, the framework of which it creates a series of educational videos on the fundamental questions of competition law both in English and Russian. The first video was released in February 2021 on commitments, the second video was published in April on competitive neutrality, while the third released in July on bid rigging. The high professionalism of the work is indicated by the fact that several competition authorities and organizations have already approached the RCC to translate or subtitle the videos into their own language.
More information about the activities of the RCC can be found on the website of the organisation: http://www.oecdgvh.org/contents/about/about_rcc
GVH Press Office