More “good trouble” today as lead expert at #UNCTAD‘s Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Law and Policy – had fun “saying it like it is” on “Enforcing Competition Law in Digital Markets and Ecosystems”.

Main points in short:

▶ “Power framework” – YES we are dealing with actors holding economic power beyond imagination, “my market cap is bigger than your GDP”, going around bribing governments with data centres and cloud goodies.

▶ Competition law has ALWAYS been inapt dealing with this power. Don’t even start on why enforcement was late and ineffectual (and the old chestnut that enforcement / regulation kill innovation – the “Type 1 error” myth that economists were happy to peddle for decades).

▶ Competition law is just unsuitable because of its narrow focus on narrow markets and little bits of conduct, instead of seeing what powers “the beast”. But this is not just an oversight: it is the product of the silent neoliberal revolution of the 1980s – ever since then we have been going around merrily saying “nono market power is not a problem! only the ABUSE” – ignoring the pathologies of market power and concentration per se. What were we thinking.

▶ Switch to regulation – a pioneering effort but still based on competition law – targets a host of narrow issues. “Self executing”? “Level playing field”? Please. A huge slog, more like. Kudos to the enforcers, but oh boy.

▶ Even bigger problem for Europe: we have a strategic industrial and security problem, none of the infrastructure is even OURS. What if it turns hostile? This is not just about economic power, ultimately about democracy as these business models are supporting disinformation and interference. Join the effort for Digital Public Infrastructure and more! As mentioned elsewhere, we are on the move. Francesca Bria Audrey Tang Meredith Whittaker Robin Berjon Maria Farrell Project Liberty Marietje Schaake Amba Kak Luca Belli hashtag#Beckn Francesco Bonfiglio E. Glen Weyl and many many more…

▶ And for crying out loud let’s not be so boring in enforcement. Be imaginative. Is the issue with AI REALLY whether there is a secret merger? My cat knows these agreements are not a merger. “Aggressively weaponising interconnected networks of assets to occupy and pre-empt and grandfather power”, more like. Any takers, agencies?

Thank you Teresa Moreira and team! Great to see Nuno Cunha Rodrigues Ioannis Lianos Filomena Chirico and more!