Cooperation in the area of competition policy and enforcement, between competition agencies in two (bilateral) or more countries (trilateral, plurilateral), which mostly takes place in an informal way, but sometimes on the basis of formal cooperation agreements. It aims to exchange information in specific antitrust or merger cases of mutual interest to the agencies, to coordinate the respective approaches in a number of key items — such as market definition, remedies, etc. — and to provide each other with assistance in enforcement activities.

Beyond this daily case-related cooperation, competition agencies cooperate within multilateral and international forums — such as the OECD Competition Committee, the Unctad Intergovernmental Group of Competition Experts and the WTO Working Group on Trade and Competition — to exchange views on various policy matters, promote consensus on best practices and agree upon policy recommendations addressed to their governments and to the private sector.

Source: Glossary of terms used in EU competition policy, Antitrust and control of concentrations, European Commission, 2002