Competition and Market Regulation

Transformations in our economy and society are challenging the way competition and markets are being regulated. The increasing digitisation of various industries raises questions about the adequacy of our current competition tools.

• How to define relevant markets when competition takes place in digital conglomerates and ecosystems beyond narrow markets for products or services?
• How to assess anticompetitive effects of practices in multi-sided markets where data, artificial intelligence and machine learning challenge our existing knowledge of how markets work?
• How to deal with the power of platforms that act as regulators by determining the conditions under which business can reach consumers?

The COVID-19 crisis has made these challenges even more visible. While smaller brick-and-mortar businesses are struggling to survive, the big techs have been thriving amid the pandemic, strengthening calls for regulation beyond the existing competition law framework. Due to the ongoing transformations, the current health and economic crisis also makes the need to reflect on the role of competition law to protect non-economic concerns more pressing.

For instance:

• Can any lessons be drawn from the measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis to relax competition rules to enable cooperation between businesses for other ‘crises’ involving the promotion of sustainability and tackling climate change?
• Will the increased focus on national interests during the COVID-19 crisis lead to a renewed debate on industrial policy and the growth of national champions?
• Is there a need for more proactive competition interventions to protect against exploitative behaviour, such as excessive pricing, which has been on the rise during the crisis?

Topics for discussion

During the track, we will be discussing the following topics::

• Market definition for digital conglomerates and ecosystems
• Notions of market power beyond dominance: economic dependence, paramount significance across markets, significant market status, etc.
• Development of novel theories of harm, including discrimination of businesses and exploitation of consumers
• Desirability of additional regulation for significant or gatekeeping platforms
• Competition, industrial policy, and national champions
• Sustainability, climate change, and competition law
• Health and competition law: excessive pricing, price gouging, pay-for-delay, etc.
• Role of considerations of privacy, democracy, diversity, and innovation in merger review
• Need for changes in procedure and enforcement policy such as the introduction of an ex ante competition tool and the adoption of interim measures

Anu Bradford (Keynote Speaker)

The Future of Liberal Democracy in the Era of Surveillance Capitalism and Digital Authoritarianism

Anu Bradford's keynote address examined the ideological origins, social implications, and relative global influence of three contrasting approaches to the digital economy: the technoliberalism of the US, the digital authoritarianism of China, and the digital paternalism of the EU. In particular, the talk focused on how these three regulatory systems - and the digital businesses they encourage and restrict - strengthen or undermine liberal democracy and the individual right to privacy and personal autonomy around the world.

Papers submitted for the track

Some of the presenters in the track have submitted full papers for discussion. You can find their papers here:

• Oscar Borgogno & Giuseppe Colangelo, SEPs Licensing Across the Supply Chain: An Antitrust Perspective
• Wolfgang Kerber & Karsten Zolna, The German Facebook Case: The Law and Economics of the Relationship between Competition and Data Protection Law
• Noga Blickstein Shchory & Michal Gal, Market Power Parasites: Abusing the Power of Digital Intermediaries to Harm Competition
• Thomas Tombal, Data protection and competition law: friends or foes regarding data sharing?

Workshop 'Remedies for Digital Markets'

In the rich conversation on antitrust in the digital economy, remedies are often treated as an afterthought. Recent enforcement and regulatory initiatives do not tell clearly whether the goals of antitrust remedies in the digital economy should be preventative or restorative. And if remedies should be restorative, it is unclear whether antitrust remedies should seek to reengineer digital competition by diversification v commodification v disintermediation or by other mechanics. The remedy question is, however, a preliminary issue that any antitrust process should address, lest it under or over fixes”.

Organizers

Speakers

Contact

For questions about possible presentations for this track, please contact Dr Inge Graef or Alex Ruiz Feases .