Russia and its Near Neighborhood: Competition and Conflict within the EU. Natolin Research Paper 04/May 2011

Russia in 2004 politely rejected the offer to become a participant in the European Neighbourhood Policy, preferring instead to pursue bilateral relations with the EU under the heading of ‘strategic partnership’. Five years later, its officials first reacted with concern to the ENP’s eastern dimension, the Eastern Partnership initiative. Quickly, however, having become convinced that the project would not amount to much, their concern gave way to indifference and derision. Furthermore, Russian representatives have failed to support idealistic or romantic notions of commonality in the area between Russia and the EU, shunned the terminology of ‘common European neighbourhood’ and replaced it in EU-Russian documents with the bland reference to ‘regions adjacent to the EU and Russian borders’. Internally, the term of the ‘near abroad’ was the official designation of the area in the Yeltsin era, and unofficially it is still in use today. As the terminological contortions suggest, Moscow officials consider the EU’s eastern neighbours as part of a Russian sphere of influence and interest. Assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, they look at the EU-Russia relationship as a ‘zero-sum game’ in which the gain of one party is the loss of the other. EU attempts to persuade the Russian power elite to regard cooperation in the common neighbourhood not as a competitive game but providing ‘win-win’ opportunities have been to no avail. In fact, conceptual approaches and practical policies conducted vis-à-vis the three Western CIS countries (Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova) and the southern Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan) confirm that, from Moscow’s perspective, processes of democratisation, liberalisation and integration with Western institutions in that region are contrary to Russian interests. In each and every case, therefore, the area’s ‘frozen conflicts’ have not been regarded by the Kremlin as an opportunity to promote stability and prosperity in the countries concerned but as an instrument to prevent European choices in their domestic and foreign policy. The current ‘reset’ in Russia’s relations with the United States and the ‘modernisation partnership’ with the EU have as yet failed to produce an impact on Russia’s policies in ‘its’ neighbourhood. The EU is nevertheless well advised to maintain its course of attempting to engage that country constructively, including in the common neighbourhood. However, its leverage is small. For any reorientation to occur in Moscow towards perceptions and policies of mutual benefit in the region, much would depend on Russia’s internal development.

A Global Analysis of of Imperfect Competition in the Banking Systems and the Latest Israeli Regulation Dealing with Market Failures. ACES Working Paper No. 3, 2007

The high concentration of the banking sector is a cross-border phenomenon that has high impact on local and global economies. This paper's main goal is to analyze the factors that impact concentration in the banking systems around the globe. The innovation of this paper is that we combined economic, "economic environment", and culture variables as explanatory variables for this analysis. We found among other things that regulation in the banking system is helpful in order to keep it competitive. We also found that when the society has more individual values rather than collective ones, its banking sector is less concentrated. In the second part of the paper we focused on the Israeli case, showing that although recent indicators of the Israeli banking system indicate a higher level of concentration and lower level of competition, it seems that the recent trend is moving toward less concentration and higher competition.

An Assessment of the Penalties System for Infringements of EU Competition Law: Can Personal Sanctions be the Missing Piece of the Puzzle? IES WORKING PAPER 6/2013

Competition law seeks to protect competition on the market as a means of enhancing consumer welfare and of ensuring an efficient allocation of resources. In order to be successful, therefore, competition authorities should be adequately equipped and have at their disposal all necessary enforcement tools. However, at the EU level the current enforcement system of competition rules allows only for the imposition of administrative fines by the European Commission to liable undertakings. The main objectives, in turn, of an enforcement policy based on financial penalties are two fold: to impose sanctions on infringing undertakings which reflect the seriousness of the violation, and to ensure that the risk of penalties will deter both the infringing undertakings (often referred to as 'specific deterrence') and other undertakings that may be considering anti-competitive activities from engaging in them (often referred to as 'general deterrence'). In all circumstances, it is important to ensure that pecuniary sanctions imposed on infringing undertakings are proportionate and not excessive. Although pecuniary sanctions against infringing undertakings are a crucial part of the arsenal needed to deter competition law violations, they may not be sufficient. One alternative option in that regard is the strategic use of sanctions against the individuals involved in, or responsible for, the infringements. Sanctions against individuals are documented to focus the minds of directors and employees to comply with competition rules as they themselves, in addition to the undertakings in which they are employed, are at risk of infringements. Individual criminal penalties, including custodial sanctions, have been in fact adopted by almost half of the EU Member States. This is a powerful tool but is also limited in scope and hard to implement in practice mostly due to the high standards of proof required and the political consensus that needs first to be built. Administrative sanctions for individuals, on the other hand, promise to deliver up to a certain extent the same beneficial results as criminal sanctions whilst at the same time their adoption is not likely to meet strong opposition and their implementation in practice can be both efficient and effective. Directors’ disqualification, in particular, provides a strong individual incentive for each member, or prospective member, of the Board as well as other senior executives, to take compliance with competition law seriously. It is a flexible and promising tool that if added to the arsenal of the European Commission could bring balance to the current sanctioning system and that, in turn, would in all likelihood make the enforcement of EU competition rules more effective. Therefore, it is submitted that a competition law regime in order to be effective should be able to deliver policy objectives through a variety of tools, not simply by imposing significant pecuniary sanctions to infringing undertakings. It is also clear that individual sanctions, mostly of an administrative nature, are likely to play an increasingly important role as they focus the minds of those in business who might otherwise be inclined to regard infringing the law as a matter of corporate risk rather than of personal risk. At the EU level, in particular, the adoption of directors’ disqualification promises to deliver more effective compliance and greater overall economic impact.