Roll up! Roll up!

For everyone in the competition and regulation game, you have to come along to the Competition Policy Institute of New Zealand annual workshop. It's in Wellington, August 10-11. The programme is here. As you'll see, the conference covers all the bases - mergers, cartels, Commission processes, consumer law (on the hot topic of privacy and data use), market studies, telco regulation, economic methods, and a think piece on unfinished business in competition and regulation policy.

It's headed by a keynote presentation from the Wharton School's Professor Joseph Harrington on 'Collusion without the Smoke-Filled Room: From Public Statements by Wetware to Algorithmic Pricing by Software'. You may well know Harrington's body of work already, but if his name rings only a vague bell, have a look on your bookshelf where you've likely got everyone's go-to textbook, Economics of Regulation and Antitrust, which he coauthored with Kip Viscusi and John Vernon.

Plus it's been confirmed that the Minister of Commerce Chris Faafoi will be the guest speaker at the workshop dinner. He's made an active start to his competition portfolio - reviving cartel criminalisation, giving the green light to Commission-initiated competition studies - so it'll be interesting to hear where he's going next, and why.

The early bird registration cut-off date is June 10, so head to the registration page and save $125  by attending and joining CLPINZ at the same time (which gives you access to the papers from previous workshops).

I can't definitively promise sausage rolls, but I live in hope...