The Interface between Competition and Consumer Policies

In the Seventh Global Forum on Competition a roundtable discussion was held on the interaction between competition policy and consumer protection policy. There were two main topics in the discussion, one focusing on substance how the two policies share common goals and how they complement one another and one on procedure institutional arrangements for enforcement of the two policies. The results are summarised below, based upon the several written submissions from delegations, the remarks of lead speakers and the discussions that followed, and the Secretariats background note. The two policies share a common goal: the enhancement of consumer welfare. In this way they are highly complementary. Applied properly, they reinforce one another.