The Institute at the 4th BRICS Antitrust Conference

November 12th saw the opening of the two-day conference of competition authorities of the BRICS countries in Durban, South Africa, under the theme of 'Competition and Inclusive Growth'. On the first day of the conference, the leaders of the Institute – Director Alexey Ivanov, and Leading Researcher Ioannis Lianos – spoke at the session "Research and Support for Competition Policy: the Role of the Academic Institutions of BRICS".

The session was moderated by Professor of Economics of Moscow State University Andrey Shastitko. Along with Institute staff, the panel was also attended by: Imraan Valodia, the Dean of the Faculty of Law and Management at Wits University; Alessandro Octaviani, Professor of Economic Law and Political Economy at the University of Sao Paulo; and Wang Xianling, Professor of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Alexey and Ioannis described the current research project of the Institute on the optimisation of the functioning and regulation of the food industry and the structure of food chains for BRICS countries.
Also the Institute representatives spoke about the project of creating a platform to develop common approaches to the antitrust regulation of innovation for socially significant markets. "In the course of our interdisciplinary research on global food chains there is shown to be a lack of empirical data and scientific analysis of this sector in the BRICS", said Ivanov. We see that the project to study the food industry was the first serious attempt to develop a research agenda in the area of competition law and policy with the leadership of the BRICS. So the first step towards systematic scientific cooperation within the BRICS in the field of antitrust law and policy can be seen. The result can be a comprehensive centre for BRICS research and information exchange in the field of antitrust law and policy, which will conduct research and analysis, to provide state agency services on independent scientific advice".