Why are Competition Authorities not taking action?
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Christopher Corbin
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Friday 18 May 2007 5:04:09 pm
Why are Competition Authorities not taking action?
Public Sector Information Holders that openly trade in the market are required to comply with competition law both at the Member State level and at the European Union level (single market), for example Directive 2003/98/EC Article 8.
In the UK the Minister from Her Majesty’s Treasury has confirmed in Parliament that this is the case – reference ePSIplus news item Subject to PSI Regulations! 8th May 2007
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/news/subject_to_psi_regulations
The question then arises as to why when a complaint from a private sector re-user is upheld is no action taken to ensure the decision is enforced? For example ePSIplus Cases – The UK Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) decision regarding the complaint from Intelligent Addressing regarding the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain.
Decision of the Office of Public Sector Information SO-42-8-4, 13 July 2006.
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/...r_information_so_42_8_4_13_july_2006
The UK Office of Fair Trading market Study on the Commercial Use of Public Information (CUPI) also expressed concerns with the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain. Reference ePSIplus reports:
The OFT CUPI Report
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/reports/the_oft_cupi_report
Intelligent Addressing referred certain aspects of the UK Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) decision regarding their complaint to the UK Review Panel of the Advisory Panel for Public Sector Information (APPSI). In the review panels report the panel states:
“OPSI should contact the OFT, in accordance with the ‘Memorandum of understanding between the Office of Fair Trading and the Office of Public Sector Information’, dated 28th July 2005, and apprise the OFT of the findings of this report.”
Reference ePSIplus news item titled: PSI Review Panel reports!
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/news/psi_review_panel_reports
In the OPSI statement published in response to the APPSI report, OPSI state:
“APPSI states that various aspects of the complaint raised competition issues which were more appropriate for the Office of Fair Trading to investigate. OPSI discussed this matter with OFT at the time the complaint was received under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding between OPSI and OFT: and our joint assessment was that this matter properly fell within OPSI’s responsibilities. One of the purposes of the PSI Regulations is to address competition issues and OPSI cannot, consistently with its statutory responsibilities under the Regulations, refuse to consider such complaints.”
Reference ePSIplus reports
OPSI Statement in relation to APPSI review: Intelligent Addressing and Ordnance Survey. 30th April 2007
http://www.epsiplus.net/epsiplus/..._and_ordnance_survey_30th_april_2007
The above sequence events that have taken place over an elapsed period of one year appear to be in agreement with respect to the Intelligent Addressing complain and that there is potentially an infringement of competition law! In the mean time there has been no resolution to the complaint.
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This raises a number of questions:
Question 1: Is the complaint procedure a viable process if there is no enforcement when a complaint is upheld?
Question 2: Are Judicial decisions any different when it comes to enforcement?
Question 3: What can be done to improve this situation?
Question 4: What is the value of the EU Directive 2003/98/EC if the regulators do not enforce the principles of the Directive?
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Gerhard Wagner
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Thursday 31 May 2007 8:23:13 am
Mass of regulatory bodies + low economic value of PSI re-use
Lets take as example the situation in Austria: we run one regulatory body for the telecom-sector, one for mass-media and audiovisual-media and a third one for general regulatory affairs. The first two would be much closer to the PSI-issue: for instance that agency responsible for telecom-affairs had to rule in the past on the commercial re-use of telephony subscribers, required to set up a PRIVATE address-book. - And the agency ruling on mass-media is at the very heart of content-business. - However, it seems that the first two agencies are not reponsible to rule on PSI re-use at all whereas the third body is up to now not interested in that subject at all. - Compared with the economic value of other important cases the issue of PSI re-use is really peanuts.
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Christopher Corbin
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Monday 20 October 2008 7:10:12 am
Berlin - Competition Authority meeting
The ePSIplus Thematic Network has invited ALL members of the European Competition Network (ECN - http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/ecn/index_en.html ) including the European Commission to a meeting that will be held in Berlin on the 11 November 2008. The meeting will consider the role of the ECN Members with respect to the market place related to the re-use of public sector information.
The number of Members of the ECN that accept the invitation to attend will be an indicator as to whether the Competition Authorities appreciate their role in developing the European Knowledge economy based on the re-use of public sector information. Early indications of the responses received to the invitations are that as few Member States Competition Authorities have received a complaint regarding the re-use of public sector information then they believe this particular market sector does not have a problem so do not see attending the Berlin meeting as a priority.
The English and German invitation to the meeting maybe found at the event page
http://www.epsiplus.net/events/th...re_use_business/psi_re_use_meeting_3
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