The conference was opened by a keynote speech by Mike Walker (Chief Economic Advisor at the Competition and Markets Authority, London), who spoke on ‘Why effective competition policy is more important than ever and how can academics help.’ In the following first panel discussion, Massimiliano Kadar (European Commission, Brussels) gave the conference participants an insight into the preliminary results of the public consultation on Regulation 1/2003. Silke Hossenfelder (Bundeskartellamt, Bonn) and Henri Piffaut (Autorité de la concurrence, Paris) added experiences from the perspective of National Competition Authorities, while Daniela Seeligers (Linklaters, Düsseldorf) added some thoughts from a lawyer’s perspective. The second panel session chaired by Friedrich Wenzel Bulst (European Commission, Brussels) was dedicated to the currently discussed eleventh GWB amendment and in particular to the proposed market investigation tool. Thorsten Käseberg (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Berlin) explained the political background of the amendment and defended the proposed instrument against various criticisms put forward by Albrecht Bach (Oppenländer, Stuttgart), who characterized it as a UK model ‘lost in translation.’ MaCCI director Martin Peitz complemented the discussion with his economic expertise. A second keynote speech rounded off the first conference day. Pablo Ibañez Colomo (London School of Economics) assessed the remedies regime of Regulation 1/2003 against the background of recent case law.

The second day of the conference started with a keynote speech by Johannes Laitenberger. As a judge at the General Court and former Director General at the Commission, he drew from a wealth of experience and pointed out ways in which antitrust proceedings could become more efficient. The last two panel sessions dealt with the compatibility of leniency programmes and private damages claims as well as the authorities' cooperation in the European Competition Network (ECN).