Antitrust Across the Atlantic

Is a new era of antitrust and competition policy on the horizon?

Amid mounting geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, and a shifting global order, governments around the world are looking to competition policy as a catch-all tool that can help achieve everything from economic security and innovation to decarbonization and other public interest goals.

Although it’s an open question whether new policies will have desired effects, it is clear that substantive economic research and analysis will play a bigger role for executives, attorneys, and policymakers themselves as they look to withstand today’s choppy political waters.

BRG’s latest issue of ThinkSet addresses these topics and more with contributions from experts across the firm’s burgeoning Antitrust & Competition practice, including several recently arrived at BRG. The new issue will be split into two parts, with volume two to follow in mid-April.

In This Issue

• A Q&A with Adina Claici and Henry Kahwaty on new competition policies in the US and European Union (EU)—and their impact on merger controls.
• A podcast with David Teece and Xavier Boutin about dynamic competition, how to maintain innovation in the tech sector, and other hot-button issues.
• Hong Kong-based Dennis Beling and Ling Dorcas Kwan argue that competition authorities across Asia-Pacific may want to reconsider adopting laws modeled after the EU’s Digital Markets Act when looking to rein in Big Tech.
• Johannesburg-based Liberty Mncube questions whether revisions to South Africa’s public interest merger guidelines have gone too far.
• Konstantin Ebinger and Lawrence Krug take up regulators’ heightened scrutiny of buyer power in certain labor markets.
• Ai Deng discusses the latest research into pricing algorithms and collusion—and what executives and attorneys should know—in the first of his two-part series on this topic.

Coming in volume two:

• Managing directors from the US, UK, and Europe weigh in on the latest updates to competition policy in their respective regions and look ahead at what’s to come.
• Mark Bosley surveys the surge of competition litigation and the shifting role of experts.
• Ai Deng concludes his series on algorithmic collusion and discusses implications of using third-party pricing algorithms.
• Francisco Espinosa offers a new perspective on multimarket contact in horizontal merger assessments.