Ici.
Monday, October 16, 2023
Charting a Course for Global AI Governance: Options and Lessons from Nuclear History
D. Backovsky, J. Bryson, here.
Sustainability and Competition: From Hot Topic to Business As Usual?
Kluwer Competition Law Blog, here.
Friday, October 13, 2023
Thursday, October 12, 2023
Monday, October 09, 2023
Generative AI: the US class action against Google Bard (and other AI tools) for web scraping
Kluwer Copyright Blog, here.
Google’s Commitments under Section 19a of the German Competition Act
Kluwer Competition Law Blog, here.
Saturday, October 07, 2023
Thursday, October 05, 2023
Wednesday, October 04, 2023
Tuesday, October 03, 2023
Monday, October 02, 2023
The New Law of the European Data Market: Demystifying the European Data Strategy
B. Botero Arcila, T. Groza, here.
Leitlinien zu Artikel 102 AEUV – Neue Maßstäbe für die Missbrauchsaufsicht?
Bundeskartellamt, Arbeitspapier hier.
General Purpose AI Systems in the AI Act: trying to fit a square peg into a round hole
C. Boine, D. Rolnick, here.
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Friday, September 08, 2023
Monday, September 04, 2023
‘Ecosystem’ theories of harm in digital mergers: New insights from network economics
C. Caffarra et al., here.
Open (For Business): Big Tech, Concentrated Power, and the Political Economy of Open AI
D. Gray Widder et al., here
Thursday, August 31, 2023
New draft paper: ‘Compliance by design’ with the messenger interoperability obligation under the Digital Markets Act
Me, comments much welcome, here.
BTW, I'll resume posting "properly" next week.
Saturday, August 12, 2023
Friday, August 04, 2023
Thursday, August 03, 2023
Wednesday, August 02, 2023
The Relationship between Competition and Innovation (Part I)
OECD Competition Policy Roundtable, here.
Competition Between AI Foundation Models: Dynamics and Policy Recommendations
T. Schrepel, A. Pentland, here.
Unpacking the 2023 Revised Merger Guidelines: A Conversation With the U.S. Department of Justice
Ruled by reason, Podcast Episode here.
Monday, July 31, 2023
Friday, July 28, 2023
History Suggests Economists Need To Think Precisely About Populism
A. De Bromhead, K. O'Rourke, here.
Thursday, July 27, 2023
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Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Why We’re Updating the Government’s Merger Guidelines
J. Kanter, L. Kahn, WSJ (of all places), here.
"When markets are competitive and companies jostle to win business, everyone benefits. Consumers pay lower prices and get better service. Workers have more options to earn higher wages and get better working conditions. And we all benefit from the breakthrough innovations and diverse views that flourish when markets are open and the best ideas win.
More than a century ago, Congress set out to protect free and fair competition by passing antitrust laws. These laws prohibit mergers that may harm competition, while permitting those that don’t. As federal antitrust enforcers, we want our approach to be clear and predictable. Since 1968, our agencies have issued guidelines to explain how we assess whether mergers might hurt competition.
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have updated the merger guidelines to reflect an evolving economy several times, under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, Obama and Trump. We are continuing that tradition. Our proposed guidelines are faithful to the legal principles that have guided our enforcement efforts for generations. They recognize that firms can compete in a variety of ways and lay out the different ways that mergers may threaten competition.
The guidelines are written to be understood by businesses, consumers, entrepreneurs, workers and the broader public. We focused on three goals while drafting them.
First, as federal antitrust enforcers, we are bound by the antitrust laws as written by Congress and interpreted by the Supreme Court. The Clayton Act of 1914 prohibits any merger that may substantially reduce competition or tend to create a monopoly. Time and again since then—from expanding the Clayton Act to address a broader range of transactions to requiring that companies notify the government in advance of large mergers—Congress has closed loopholes and offered antitrust enforcers and private citizens more tools to stop anticompetitive mergers.
Recognizing Congress’s clear commands, more than a century of Supreme Court and appellate precedent makes clear that the antitrust laws protect the public from mergers that let dominant firms further control a market or create choke points in the economy. To ensure that our approach to merger review is faithful to the law, the proposed guidelines include—for the first time—legal citations to Supreme Court cases.
Second, enduring antitrust legal principles must be applied to today’s markets, reflecting how companies operate, compete and grow in the 21st century. To make sure we understand these changes, our proposed merger guidelines encompass the insights of modern analytical tools, taking into account market realities.
Third, we have written the draft guidelines with the broader public, not only antitrust experts, in mind. This makes it easier for businesses and individuals to understand the risk that a merger or acquisition may lead to an antitrust investigation and, where warranted, a lawsuit. But the proposed merger guidelines don’t create rights or responsibilities, nor are they substitutes for the law itself.
The proposed merger guidelines are the result of a public request for information issued in January 2022. We received more than 5,000 comments—from businesses, individuals, farmers, nurses, pharmacists, consumer advocates, worker organizations, antitrust practitioners, academics and trade associations. During four listening sessions, we heard about the effects of mergers and acquisitions on different sectors, which helped us understand how mergers can undermine open markets.
Our work isn’t done. We encourage the public to read the proposed merger guidelines and share its views at regulations.gov. The deadline to comment is Sept. 18. Our agencies will read and reflect on these comments before issuing final merger guidelines.
Congress tasked us with faithfully enforcing the antitrust laws to promote open, resilient markets. By updating the merger guidelines we hope to propel American ingenuity and ensure that the best ideas win.
Monday, July 24, 2023
Friday, July 21, 2023
Thursday, July 20, 2023
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Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
« Charles River Associates s’est déclaré « fier » de la nomination de sa « consultante de haut niveau Fiona Scott Morton ». Faut-il s’en inquiéter ? »
You can bet they were also very proud of all their CRA consultants nominated for the latest so called Antitrust Writing Awards, here.
Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Gen AI & Market Power: What Role for Antitrust Regulators?
Amazing webinar, just ended.
A couple of immediate reactions to what we heard. It appears everyone is still in research mode, which is perfectly acceptable. However, there's already some serious musing afoot, particularly from the cloud services sector perspective (Adlc here, an overview here, if I may). What Big Tech firms are up to is also quite obvious. Well, what's next?
Starting from the recognition that generative AI makes all much, much worse and much more difficult (Andreas Mundt, - 19a and the NCT could come very handy, of course), do we sit on our hands, awaiting one monopolist to be swapped out for "another" (best-case scenario, as suggested by Joshua Gans)? Do we carve out tiny oases of diversity, try to preserve those famous windows of opportunity, cherish those few cracks that might just open up and observe from the sidelines (Susan Athey)? Do we attempt to grab the bull by the horns, seeking to shift the direction of innovation (Daron Acemoglu, with suggestions on how to do so, from AI regulation to tax rules)? Or are we temped to surrender to a sense of discouragement (Tommaso Valletti - not alone)?
Update: The recording is now available here, and Ian Brown has some in-depth tweets (yes, you also can) on the discussion, all unrolled here.
Überprüfung einer Bestpreisklausel – Bundeskartellamt stellt Verfahren gegen Lieferando ein
Bundeskartellamt, hier.
("Anlass für das Verfahren war die Überprüfung einer Bestpreisklausel in den Allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen (AGB) von Lieferando gegenüber Restaurants. Dieser zufolge müssen die auf Lieferando geforderten Preise den Preisen in den eigenen Vertriebskanälen der Restaurants entsprechen")
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
A very public, successful job interview, for a while.
FSM "resigned", as you heard coming back to shore.
This is now for the archives:
[BTW
- her very clear position on interoperability is encouraging :) here;
- her very clear position on interoperability is encouraging :) here;
- the Amazon/iRobot merger in-depth investigation following the Meta ruling is going to be very interesting (but can she say anything about it as former Amazon consultant? How many years ago was it?);
- her Consultant's stance on cloud gaming being "a nascent technology that does not yet have a compelling use case" is hopefully correct;
- wondering if this roadmap could be of any use now;
- with addictive technologies aplenty, what has antitrust ever done for us?
- Q: has there ever been an EU Chief Competition Economist who was not a CRA consultant? A: Yes!]]
Review of the Digital Markets, Consumer and Competition Bill
UK Parliament, here (oral evidence).
CMA Video, from 14:29:20
Potential addressees 20 June 2023 - Review of the Digital Markets, Consumer and Competition Bill - Oral evidence - Committees - UK Parliamentideo Parliamentlive.tv - Communications and Digital Committee
Furman, Marsden; Fletcher Parliamentlive.tv - Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill
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(Over)simplifying the "AI control" debate?
Waiting to read Meredith Whittaker & Co-authors on this.
Monday, July 10, 2023
CJEU ruling on Meta referral could close the chapter on surveillance capitalism
Natasha The Great, here.
Tesla and Chinese EV Giants: short lived price collusion
In a display of the finest irony, 16 automakers in China, including industry powerhouses like Tesla and BYD, last week committed to a pledge of fair competition and "normal" pricing, only to retract during the weekend as somebody finally realized that it contradicted China's anti-monopoly laws. EV-edition, here.
The FTC’s biggest AI enforcement tool? Forcing companies to delete their algorithms
Model deletion, while not new, has seen increased use as a deterrent. It hits at the core of a company's business model, rather than simply imposing fines, which can be seen as mere slaps on the wrist for big tech companies. Cyberscoop, here.
UK Approach to LLMs: Call for evidence
The Committee is seeking evidence on several topics, including future trends of LLMs, associated opportunities and risks, domestic regulation, the adequacy of the UK’s regulatory capacity, possible non-regulatory and regulatory options, and comparisons with international approaches. UK Parliament, here.
Saturday, July 08, 2023
A Chinese DMA?
Yesterday, I had the pleasure to teach a 90-minute class on the DMA for Chinese competition officials. Despite a) being just after lunch b) enticing weather outside c) lovely but consecutive interpretation slowing down things a lot, I enjoyed the opportunity to provide an overview of this amazing ;-) regulatory tool. I think they felt my enthousiasm (but I very much doubt they directly shared it) and there were some interesting, intriguing questions. Let‘s wait and see…
Sunday, July 02, 2023
Saturday, July 01, 2023
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Tête dans les nuages: some early evening reflections on today's Avis by the French competition authority
Avis n° 23-A-08 du 29 juin 2023 portant sur le fonctionnement concurrentiel de l’informatique en nuage (« cloud »).
My perspective comes from someone studying this topic as an independent researcher, and currently writing an article based on a Teramo presentation, so I'm obviously biased.
I've read some parts of today's 200-page long Opinion and find that it is largely in line with the main conclusions of other important analyses, particularly those of Ofcom and the Dutch competition authority. Opportunistically, I would have hoped for a more detailed discussion of the application of the DMA to the cloud sector, which remains quite general, perhaps (un)surprisingly. But this could be an exciting topic for a paper to be presented at the upcoming November conference in Brussels on "DMA enforcement between opportunities and challenges" (call for papers). The analysis of the Data Act proposal has also been largely omitted because there has already been a political agreement on the text (two days ago).
The clearest added value, which needs to be evaluated in detail, seems to be the definition of the relevant market, particularly in the presence of digital ecosystems, which I'm happy to cover in a lesson next week in Augusta Treverorum. There are also rich scenarios involving specific competitive risks. It seems clear that the focus, also in view of (likely ?) enforcement actions, is on possible abuses of dominant position, but also Article 101 and other French provisions that could possibly be applicable (also by another French regulator). Regarding mergers in the cloud sector, the Authority is already pleased to receive information regarding any proposed concentration by gatekeepers in the cloud sector under Article 14 DMA. As for the emergence of generative AI, the Authority remains quite reserved, simply noting that these new technologies could potentially be changing the structure and competitive balance of cloud markets.
Newsflash: After rapidly dashing off these lines yesterday afternoon, a rather noteworthy contribution emerged from the FTC's Bureau of Competition and Office of Technology on the competition concerns raised by Generative AI, a subject that, as seen above, the French competition authority is still ruminating over. From the point of view of competition in the cloud, the contribution made at least three relevant point:
1) The Bureau refreshed our memories on the successful action to block Nvidia's acquisition of Arm (the merger would have otherwise snuffed out competition in multiple processor markets, including chips for cloud service providers=computational resources);
2) "Incumbents that control key inputs or adjacent markets, including the cloud computing market, may be able to use unfair methods of competition to entrench their current power or use that power to gain control over a new generative AI market";
3) Egress fees, which the EU is trying to regulate, could be a way by which cloud providers can lock in generative AI companies with an insatiable appetite for compute power.
Thursday, June 22, 2023
Dislocated accountabilities in the “AI supply chain”: Modularity and developers’ notions of responsibility
D. Gray Widder, D. Nafus, here.
Market structure and industrial organization: Do we need a new antitrust standard?
EfiP Conference, video here
Submissions to the UK and EU competition authorities on the Amazon/iRobot merger
Privacy International, here.
L’Autorité de la concurrence lance une étude de marché sur le secteur de la blockchain
Autorité de la concurrence du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, ici.
Thursday, June 01, 2023
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Centre for a Digital Society , Video here . These are my very rough talking points on pay or okay in full length (more than I actually had...
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LG Frankfurt am Main, 2-06 O 172/09 (verkündet am 13.05.2009). Lesenswertes aus der Begründung (meine Hervorhebungen): "Vorstellbare ...
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TechCrunch, here .
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G. Kallfass, presentation here .
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Here (thanks to Netzpolitik).
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Public Knowledge, here .
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SEO by the Sea http://bit.ly/niVXM5.
