EU competition chief plans inquiry

The European Commission is planning a community-wide investigation of the professions in an effort to establish if their methods of charging customers are anti-competitive, the head of Brussels' competition directorate told The Irish Times yesterday.

Mr Philip Lowe, the Commission's Director General of Competition, said a recent study of the practices of professions such as the law, accounting and insurance had raised competition concerns about how they charged customers.

"We want to look further at these issues, and we will be launching a new inquiry on that, which \ Commissioner Mario Monti will be announcing soon," he said.

The inquiry is likely to be conducted by independent consultants hired by the Commission. The first investigation was done by an Austrian firm of economic consultants.

Mr Lowe said the Commission was anxious to stimulate further competition between professionals, who largely belong to self-regulating bodies.

However, he acknowledged that they had legitimate concerns about the need to maintain standards among their members.

He added that the competition directorate would liaise with the branches of the Commission that are working on creating a single market for financial and other professional services on opening these areas to further competition.

Mr Lowe was speaking after addressing a conference on merger regulation organised by the Irish Competition Authority at Croke Park in Dublin yesterday.

Afterwards, he said a new merger regime could result in deals that fell below the current €2 billion turnover threshold being scrutinised by the EU, rather than the national competition authorities.

Mr Lowe said there might be circumstances where businesses involved in mergers that resulted in a lower turnover could want their cases to go to the EU competition directorate rather than their national authorities.

But he pointed out that, where these deals had competition implications for individual member-states, the directorate would be able to refer the case back to the national authority.

He said the final shape of the new regime would be discussed next month.

Mr Lowe joined the Commission in 1973 and has served in various posts.