31st Annual IBA Communications and Competition Law Conference

25 Apr - 26 Apr 2022

Session information

Digital platforms: antitrust or regulatory approach?

Committee(s)

Antitrust Section (Lead)
Communications Law Committee (Lead)

Description

Economic power in the Internet has been traditionally unregulated, due to the fact that the digital markets has been created very recently. However, we are now facing the consolidation of few global online platforms who tend to become dominant on specific markets. They are not only technological operators, they are rather market intermediaries that intercept an important share of the added value that flows between producers and consumers, creating monopolistic or oligopolistic double-sided markets. This situation is attracting increasing attention of competition enforcement authorities as well as regulators, consumers, and privacy watchdogs in the world. The EU is now in the process to pass ad hoc pro-competitive legislation for online platforms, while similar proposals are debated in US, Latin America, and Asia. Is the time for ex-post competition rules definitively over for the Internet, and should we instead rely on ex ante regulation, as it was done in the 90’ for telecoms?

Session / Workshop Chair(s)

Innocenzo Genna Dipartimento per la Trasformazione Digitale, Naples, Italy; Working Group Coordinator, Communications Law Committee
Catriona Hatton Baker Botts, Brussels, Belgium; Secretary, Antitrust Section

Speakers

Camila Borba Lefevre Vieira Rezende Advogados, São Paulo, Brazil; Member, Communications Law Committee Advisory Board
Lucas Buthion Scaleway, Paris, France
Timothy Lamb Meta, London, England
Stefano Quintarelli Italian Parliament & Italian Digital Agency, Rome, Italy