ECA (European Competition Authorities)

European Competition Authorities (ECA) is a forum for discussion of Competition Authorities in the European Economic Area, the European Commission and the EFTA Surveillance Authority. The ECA was founded in April 2001 and has set a target to improve cooperation of national authorities. For this purpose, issue-specific working groups were created.

ECA Meeting

ECA meetings for heads of National Competition Authorities take place once a year. In 2010 the Austrian Competition Authority was host to the Director-General meeting in Vienna.

Group sanctions

In spring 2008 the working group "sanctions" has adopted sanction-recommendations for the admixture of fines in cartel cases against companies ("Principles for Convergence"). The goal is to acoordinate the amounts of fines of ECA members. Basis for the recommendations was a study of the legal framework and actual fines by ECA members.

Aviation Working Group

Another working group, in which the BWB plays an important part, is air traffic. The results are shown in the attached documents.