Competition policy 2024

Speakers
Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive of the Competition and Markets Authority
Chair: Jennifer Storey, Partner, Clifford Chance

Does the European Commission’s draft Article 102 guidance signal a change in approach to enforcement of the abuse of dominance rules? What tools have competition authorities used to manage information exchanges through AI pricing algorithms, third party providers and public price signalling? What are the implications of increased enforcement by antitrust regulators against labour market wage fixing and no-poach agreements?

In what ways has the rise of the market investigation regimes across key jurisdictions impacted the certainty of business investments? Are these developments desirable?  

Speakers
Ana Sofia Rodrigues, Board Member, Portuguese Competition Authority
Mia Morgan, Deputy General Counsel, Trainline
Juliette Enser, Interim Executive Director for Competition Enforcement at the Competition and Markets Authority
Doris Tshepe, Commissioner, Competition Commission, South Africa (virtual)
Chair: Michael Grenfell, Partner, Global Antitrust Group, Clifford Chance

How have elections and geopolitical shifts impacted competition policy across key jurisdictions? What are the implications of increasing protectionism within Europe, the United States (US) and China and how has this impacted economic security strategies? Should antitrust laws be relaxed to allow ‘national champions’ to scale up and is the current geopolitical context helping or hindering investment in healthy competition and innovation?  

With the increasing fragmentation of multilateral institutions, what kinds of international collaboration will be effective in managing the influence of non-competition factors?  

Speakers
Gillian Tett, Columnist and Member of the Editorial Board, Financial Times
Chair: Bill Kovacic, Global Competition Professor of Law and Policy, George Washington University

Has the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) had it’s intended effect and what lessons does it pose for the new UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC)? How much will the DMCC regime diverge from the DMA and what would be the consequences of such divergence? How have regulations including the EU AI Act impacted competition in the AI sector and cloud computing markets?

One year since the DMA, has competition crept into other areas of policy? Has it expanded the scope and notion of what competition law is designed to achieve?  

Speakers
Konrad Ost, Vice President, Bundeskartellamt 
Liza Lovdahl-Gormsen, Director, Competition Law Forum & Senior Research Fellow, The British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Cristina Volpin, Competition Policy Expert at the OECD
Nicholas Banasevic, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
Chair: Neil Dryden, Co-Head of EMEA Practice, Compass Lexecon 

How have recent EU court rulings in Illumina and Towercast affected mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transaction planning? Is M&A planning being affected by ‘novel’ theories of harm? Reflecting on recent cases including Microsoft/Activision, what mergers are large digital players still allowed to do? Have these cases had unintended consequences? What has been the impact of the new merger guidelines in the United States? How have they been applied and how are they working in practice?

Are outbound investment restrictions necessary and effective? Are the UK and EU likely to impose similar restrictions to the US?   

Speakers
David Lawrence, Policy Director, Antitrust Division, United States Department of Justice 
Ulla Schwager, Head, Mergers in financial services, pharmaceuticals and chemicals Unit, European Commission 
Sophie Thomson, Legal Director, Competition and Regulatory Law & Critical Projects, BT Group
Guillaume Duquesne, Senior Vice President, Compass Lexecon
Chair: Jennifer Storey, Partner, Clifford Chance

Speakers
Henry Liu, Director, Bureau of Competition, Federal Trade Commission
Neil Dryden, Co-Head of EMEA Practice, Compass Lexecon