Move Slow and Collude: The Antitrust Problem With Pacing AI
The frontier AI race’s latest safety proposal would have the leading contenders agree on how fast to run. Antitrust law has a less flattering name for that arrangement: a cartel. That is the central problem with the “pacing the frontier” plan that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei unveiled last weekend, and that fellow AI executives Sam ... Move Slow and Collude: The Antitrust Problem With Pacing AI
Rate Expectations: Apple and the New Price Regulators
Competition policy is supposed to protect the competitive process, not do double-duty as price regulation. Yet the line between the two appears to be blurring in both a U.S. antitrust case and the European Union’s enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). On Aug. 14, after years of litigation with Epic Games, Apple submitted a ... Rate Expectations: Apple and the New Price Regulators
From Google Fines to French Wine: The Trade Case Against the DMA
Brussels has spent two years testing how much regulatory pain Washington will tolerate before reaching for the tariff book. President Donald Trump may have supplied the answer. His threatened Section 301 investigation—a process that allows the United States to retaliate against foreign practices that unfairly burden U.S. commerce—could turn Europe’s digital rulebook into a transatlantic ... From Google Fines to French Wine: The Trade Case Against the DMA
Europe’s Privacy Paradox: Fort Knox for Search Data, a Checkbox for Your Phone
Brussels has developed a curious theory of digital privacy. Anonymous search queries need audits, screening, and a security cordon. Your messages, microphone, and screen can make do with a checkbox. That is the logic running through two decisions the European Commission adopted last week involving the same company, under the same law, on the same ... Europe’s Privacy Paradox: Fort Knox for Search Data, a Checkbox for Your Phone
The DMA’s Cloud-Cuckoo Land
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) was built to police digital gatekeepers. The European Commission now wants to test how far that metaphor can stretch—past app stores, social networks, and marketplaces, and into the server racks. The Commission has reached the preliminary view that Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure should be designated as gatekeepers ... The DMA’s Cloud-Cuckoo Land
Act First, Learn Later: AI Antitrust and the Error Costs of Regulation at Machine Speed
Competition enforcers appear to have discovered their own version of artificial intelligence: act first, learn later. In the span of a week, agencies across four continents moved to reshape how AI products are built, distributed, and integrated—mostly before anyone has shown, in a final appealable decision, that the challenged conduct harms competition. Last week, a ... Act First, Learn Later: AI Antitrust and the Error Costs of Regulation at Machine Speed
Brussels’ AI Catch-22: Siri, Define ‘Choice’
Did Apple jump, or was it pushed? That is the question Brussels would rather not answer after Apple announced that its new Siri AI features will not ship on iPhones and iPads in the European Union. The European Commission says Apple made a free choice. Apple’s actual choice was between opening the iPhone in ways ... Brussels’ AI Catch-22: Siri, Define ‘Choice’
The European Commission’s ‘Six-Seven’ Theory of Interoperability
If you have been near anyone under the age of 15 in the past year, you may have heard the phrase “six seven” shouted with great conviction and no discernible content. It usually comes with a hand gesture. It means, as best anyone can tell, absolutely nothing. That is the joke: a number pair masquerading ... The European Commission’s ‘Six-Seven’ Theory of Interoperability
Nonstop to Nowhere: Spirit, JetBlue, and the Limits of Merger Doctrine
Spirit Airlines built its brand on the promise that flying could be miserable, but cheap. Its reported shutdown and liquidation now poses a less cheerful question for antitrust: What if the competitor regulators fought to preserve was already running out of runway? That question has triggered the sort of debate that is easy to politicize ... Nonstop to Nowhere: Spirit, JetBlue, and the Limits of Merger Doctrine
Reverse Patent Pools and Other TTBER Tall Tales
In standard-essential patent (SEP) licensing, every procedural tweak is also a skirmish over bargaining power. That is what makes licensing negotiation groups (LNGs) more than an obscure acronym in the European Commission’s 2026 Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (TTBER) and accompanying Guidelines (TTGs). LNGs would allow technology implementers to bargain collectively with rights holders. Depending ... Reverse Patent Pools and Other TTBER Tall Tales
Brussels’ AI Squeeze: Regulating What It Leaves Standing
Brussels has boxed itself into a familiar corner: first limit how a platform can make money, then regulate what is left. The European Commission’s case against Meta over WhatsApp is a near-perfect illustration. On April 15, the European Commission sent Meta a Supplementary Statement of Objections. It signaled its intent to order the company to ... Brussels’ AI Squeeze: Regulating What It Leaves Standing
Turning Down the Thinking: A Law & Economics Trilogue on AI Throttling
Three section leads at the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) read the same viral GitHub post and reached three different conclusions. Call it a trilogue—three views, one problem, and a technology that refuses to sit still. The GitHub issue filed last week against Anthropic’s Claude Code product carried a blunt title: “Claude Code ... Turning Down the Thinking: A Law & Economics Trilogue on AI Throttling
