2024 Awards Rules

A. AIM

The aim of the Antitrust Writing Awards ("Awards") is to promote competition scholarship and to contribute to competition advocacy in the legal and economic fields. Each year, the Awards Jury (“Jury”) and the general public (“Readers”) contribute to this achievement by selecting the best recent antitrust writings published around the world.

The Editorial Committee collects submissions in November and announces the nominated articles in January. The Jury comprises the Board (composed of leading enforcers), the Academic Steering Committee (composed of leading academics), and the Business Steering Committee (composed of leading in-house counsel). All of them participate in the selection of the best writings and seek to reward the most meaningful legal and economic antitrust publications.

Simultaneously, anyone from the general public can vote on the website for any article nominated in the Antitrust Writing Awards as part of the Reader’s Choice Awards. All readers are also encouraged to submit articles during the submission period.

In order to ensure impartiality, the Jury members are obligated to recuse themselves from voting in any subcategory where their own articles have been nominated. The Editorial Committee also reserves the right to balance the number of nominations each author and institution will have in the same year.

The Awards consist of:
– “Best Articles”: best academic publications (mostly peer-reviewed journals) and best business publications (non-peer-reviewed journals, briefs, memoranda, posts, etc.);
– “Best Soft Laws & Studies”: best non-enforcement documents drafted by competition agencies such as guidelines, market studies, white papers, etc;
– “Best Student Papers”: best antitrust papers written by current and recent Law & Economics students.

B. BEST ARTICLES

1. Eligibility

Eligible articles must:
– Have been accepted for publication, published, or released in print or electronic format in English between December 1, 2022 and November 30, 2023;
– Be made freely available on the Awards website or on the Internet (SSRN, academic journals’ website...) to allow the Jury and Readers to read them;
– Not have been nominated during the previous editions of the Antitrust Writing Awards.

Articles can be co-authored and eligible authors must be natural persons.

The classification of articles into the Academic or Business categories is determined as follows:
– Academic articles: long articles accepted for publication, published, or released in print or electronic format in academic peer-reviewed journals, chapters of academic books, university journals, conference papers…;
– Business articles: short articles accepted for publication, published, or released in print or electronic format in professional publications, such as non-peer-reviewed journals, briefs, memoranda, blogs...

2. Subcategories

The Academic category is subdivided into 10 subcategories:

General Antitrust: including general legal antitrust theory and paradigms, new ideas, and perspectives for antitrust on a general legal level;
General Economics: including economic theories, models, and statistical tools used in the antitrust field;
Concerted Practices: including criminal and civil cartel enforcement at the federal, state, and local level, treatment of joint ventures, and vertical restrictions;
Unilateral conduct: including attempted monopolization, tying, and predatory pricing;
Mergers: including substantive merger analysis, merger enforcement, and guidelines;
Intellectual Property: issues relating to antitrust and intellectual property;
Private Enforcement: issues relating to antitrust private enforcement;
Cross-border: issues of an international or regional nature that may arise within multiple national or supranational jurisdictions, including state aid, foreign subsidies, and foreign investments;
Procedure: issues relating to antitrust procedures by courts, enforcers, and parties to antitrust cases;
Digital: issues relating to antitrust enforcement in digital markets.

To ensure that everyone has a fair chance of winning an award, one individual author cannot submit more than 2 articles for the Academic Articles competition and no more than 1 article per subcategory.

The Business category is subdivided into 14 subcategories. It contains 10 subcategories that include articles with a US, EU, and non-specific geographic dimension, and 4 subcategories that include articles related to all antitrust topics in a specific region to spur the promotion and visibility of writings from all the parts of the world:

General Antitrust: including general antitrust theory and paradigms, new ideas, policy suggestions, and perspectives for antitrust on a general level;
General Economics: including economic theories, models, and statistical tools used in the antitrust field;
Concerted Practices: including criminal and civil cartel enforcement at the federal, state, and local level, treatment of joint ventures, and vertical restrictions;
Unilateral conduct: including attempted monopolization, tying, predatory pricing;
Mergers: including substantive merger analysis, merger enforcement, and guidelines;
Intellectual Property: issues relating to antitrust and intellectual property;
Private Enforcement: issues relating to antitrust private enforcement;
Cross-border: issues of an international or regional nature that may arise within multiple national or supranational jurisdictions, including state aid, foreign subsidies, and foreign investments;
Procedure: issues relating to antitrust procedures by courts, enforcers, and parties to antitrust cases;
Digital: issues relating to antitrust enforcement in digital markets;
Asia and Oceania: issues relating to antitrust enforcement in Asia and Oceania;
Africa and the Middle East: issues relating to antitrust enforcement in Africa and the Middle East;
Americas: issues relating to antitrust enforcement in the Americas, excluding the United States;
Europe: Issues relating to antitrust enforcement in European countries (e.g. France, UK, Germany, Turkey…).

To ensure that everyone has a fair chance of winning an award, each firm is allowed to submit no more than:
– 10 articles in the general subcategories (Mergers, Procedure, Digital...)
– 10 articles in the regions subcategories (Asia and Oceania, Africa and the Middle East, Americas)

Likewise, editors of blogs and journals are also allowed to submit no more than:
– 10 articles in the general subcategories (Mergers, Procedure, Digital...)
– 10 articles in the regions subcategories (Asia and Oceania, Africa and the Middle East, Americas)

Moreover, each firm, editor and individual is also allowed to submit no more than:
– 2 articles per individual in the general subcategories.
– 2 articles per individual in the regions subcategories.

3. Selection & Voting procedure

The Editorial Committee selects two pools of eligible academic and business articles based on the Readers’ submissions and the Jury’s suggestions.

3.1 Jury’s Choice

The Jury is composed of two Steering Committees (Academic Steering Committee and Business Steering Committee) and a Board. The Steering Committees vote for their favorite articles, resulting in a shortlist of 48 finalists (20 Academic articles and 28 Business articles). Finally, the Board votes for the 24 award-winning articles (10 Academic and 14 Business), 1 in each sub-category.

Articles are judged according to the quality of writing, scholarship, originality, practical relevance, and the contribution they make to competition advocacy. The Board reserves the right to award fewer awards than planned if the articles under consideration do not meet the standards of the Awards.

3.2 Readers’ Choice

The Readers’ Choice Award recognizes the articles that have received the most votes from the general public with one winner per subcategory, resulting in a total of 24 winners. Readers can vote from January 12 until March 25, 2024. The most voted articles in both the Academic and Business categories will be announced as the Readers’ Choice winners during the Awards Ceremony.

Each reader can vote only once per article and the votes are anonymous, with no personal information from the reader being stored on the website, except for non-personally identifiable data used by the computer system to exclude duplicate votes.

4. Tie-Breaking for Nominees

Should the Steering Committees’ votes result in a tie, all articles with the same number of votes will be submitted to the Board. In case of further ties at the Board level, the chairman of the Board will make the final decision.

5. Multiple wins

In order to ensure all nominated authors have a fair chance of winning an award, one author cannot be awarded in multiple subcategories in the same year.

Should the same author have the most votes in more than one subcategory, the article with the highest number of votes will be the winner and the other articles will be withdrawn from the competition.

C. BEST SOFT LAWS & STUDIES

The “Soft Laws & Studies” selection aims to contribute to developing antitrust culture and awareness. Alongside the ICN’s work, it seeks to support international antitrust advocacy by drawing attention to the most meaningful competition agency practices. It aims at singling out some of the most interesting antitrust administration practices that could be usefully applied more generally.

1. Eligibility

Eligible publications are non-enforcement documents such as guidelines, market studies, white papers, etc., issued by competition agencies between December 1, 2022 and November 30, 2023. Publications are judged according to practical relevance, innovation, and the contribution they make to competition advocacy. Documents must be written or translated into English to be eligible.

2. Subcategories

The Soft Laws & Studies category is subdivided into 4 regional subcategories:

Asia and Oceania: Documents relating to antitrust enforcement in Asia and Oceania;
Africa and the Middle East: Documents relating to antitrust enforcement in Africa and the Middle East;
Americas: Documents relating to antitrust enforcement in the Americas;
Europe: Documents relating to antitrust enforcement in the EU and in individual European countries.

To ensure that every institution has a fair chance of winning an award, one individual institution cannot submit more than 2 soft laws and studies.

3. Selection & Voting procedure

The Editorial Committee invites competition agencies to submit their best soft laws and studies. The Steering Committees and Readers then vote for the best documents. The number of winners may vary, depending on the actual number of submissions.

4. Readers’ Choice

The Readers’ Choice Award recognizes the soft laws or studies that have received the most votes from the general public with one winner per subcategory, resulting in a total of 4 winners. Readers can vote from January 12 until March 25, 2024. The most voted documents will be announced as the winners during the Awards Ceremony.

Each reader can vote only once per document and the votes are anonymous, with no personal information from the reader being stored on the website, except for non-personally identifiable data used by the computer system to exclude duplicate votes.

D. BEST STUDENT PAPER

The Antitrust Writing Award for Best Student Paper rewards one student paper that stands out by its originality or relevance to current antitrust issues. The goal of the Award for Best Student Paper is to support student scholarship and promote antitrust laws, antitrust economics, and antitrust policies among Law and Economics students. The winner(s) will receive a one-year Concurrences+ subscription (which gives access to the entire database of Concurrences antitrust conferences, articles, and books).

1. Eligibility

Students who want to participate in the competition must have been graduate students enrolled in a law school, business school, or graduate school economics program at the Master’s level or higher (in 2023).

Eligible papers must have been written or published between December 1, 2022 and November 30, 2023. Students’ papers do not have to be published anywhere to be eligible. All writings of authors who have been students during the year 2023 are eligible.

Papers may be co-authored, but to ensure that every student has a fair chance of winning an award, one student cannot submit more than 2 papers.

2. Format

Papers must be written in English. Papers can be individual or co-authored, with other students only.

3. Selection & Voting procedure

The Best Student Paper Award will be awarded to the paper receiving the most votes from a peer jury composed of students from George Washington University Law School under the mentorship of Prof. William Kovacic.

4. Readers’ Choice

Readers can vote from January 12 until March 25, 2024. The most voted student paper will be announced as the Readers’ Choice winner during the Awards Ceremony.

E. TERMS

1. Submissions

The deadline for submitting all documents for nominations is November 30, 2023. Submissions are to be done by using the electronic submission form on the Awards website (www.awards.concurrences.com).

2. Publication

The Awards results will be made public at the Awards Ceremony, which will take place on April 9, 2024, on the eve of the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting, in Washington, D.C. The Awards results will also be announced via social media and emails to the subscribers of Concurrences’ newsletters (sign up here) after the Awards Ceremony. The results will also be made available on this website.

3. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Individual votes remain confidential. Click here to read the Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.

4. Miscellaneous

The Awards are managed by Concurrences. Concurrences, acting as the event manager, works to ensure that a sufficient number of quality articles and publications are submitted and surveyed, checks eligibility, and organizes the Awards Ceremony. Any unexpected issues will be dealt with by the Editorial Committee of the Awards.

F. CONTACT

Any questions regarding the Antitrust Writing Awards should be referred to awards@concurrences.com.