Showing archive for: “International Antitrust”
Android and the Art of Regulatory Self-Harm
Europe keeps asking where its technology champions are. In Google Android, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) offered part of the answer: build a successful platform, and Brussels may spend the next decade treating its architecture as evidence. The CJEU’s final judgment in Google Android, handed down last week, will be celebrated ... Android and the Art of Regulatory Self-Harm
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
Killer Theories and Acqui-Hire Alibis
Antitrust agencies have a habit of giving new labels to old anxieties. In artificial intelligence, the latest worry is that partnerships between large technology firms and startups are not partnerships at all, but mergers in clever disguises. In the first article in this series, we examined how Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) has ... Killer Theories and Acqui-Hire Alibis
Brussels Goes Gate-Hunting: AWS, Azure, and the DMA’s Cloud Problem
The European Commission wants to treat cloud computing as a gatekeeper market. That is the wrong diagnosis, and it would lead to the wrong cure. The Commission’s preliminary view that Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure should be designated as Digital Markets Act (DMA) gatekeepers for cloud-computing services is more than another skirmish in ... Brussels Goes Gate-Hunting: AWS, Azure, and the DMA’s Cloud Problem
Brazil Catches the Acqui-Hire Wave
The global antitrust wave over Big Tech’s artificial intelligence deals has reached Brazil. The question is whether Brazil’s competition authority is paddling into a real breaker—or mistaking regulatory chop for a swell. Last month, Brazil’s antitrust authority, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), entered that debate. It issued part of its long-awaited decisions on ... Brazil Catches the Acqui-Hire Wave
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 Reboots Merger Control. Now Debug the Discretion.
European Union merger control is getting a software update. The question is whether the new code will make the system faster, smarter, and better at spotting real competitive problems—or simply give the European Commission more buttons to press. The pending rewrite of European Union merger-control guidance is the broadest review of the framework in roughly ... Brussels Reboots Merger Control. Now Debug the Discretion.
Brazil, Bots, and the Price of Free
Brazil’s WhatsApp case began as a fight over access to an application programming interface, or API—the technical doorway that lets outside services connect to WhatsApp. It has quickly become a test of how antitrust law should treat AI distribution. The Federal Court of São Paulo has now suspended the R$250,000, or about $50,000, daily fine ... Brazil, Bots, and the Price of Free
Brazil’s Google News Case and the Art of Not Letting Go
Some legal cases age like wine. Others age like browser tabs left open too long. Brazil’s Google News inquiry belongs firmly in the latter category. On April 3, Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) announced that its Tribunal had unanimously decided to send a seven-year-old administrative inquiry concerning Google’s use of journalistic content—whether for ... Brazil’s Google News Case and the Art of Not Letting Go
The Bundle of All Fears: India’s Risky War on Integration
Good intentions make for lousy competition law when they are stapled to bad economics. That is the trouble with the new fashion in digital regulation: It treats integration as suspicion, product design as coercion, and innovation as something firms may pursue only after regulators decide it is sufficiently tidy. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act ... The Bundle of All Fears: India’s Risky War on Integration
Don’t Freeze the AI Race at the Starting Line
Regulators keep warning that AI markets are about to be captured by Big Tech. The awkward fact is that AI markets keep refusing to cooperate. Several years into the generative-AI boom, the sector still looks less like a coronation than a street fight: OpenAI, Google, Meta, Amazon, Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and others are battling ... Don’t Freeze the AI Race at the Starting Line
Merger Guidelines for the Industrial Policy Curious
The European Commission published its draft “guidelines on the assessment of mergers under Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings” yesterday. The title does what titles of merger guidelines usually do: it lowers expectations. That is useful misdirection. The document itself is anything but dull. The draft guidelines span more ... Merger Guidelines for the Industrial Policy Curious
