Bill Kovacic: Goals of Antitrust | Neo-Brandeisians | What Makes A Competition Agency Great | DMA

Prof. William E. Kovacic, Global Competition Professor of Law and Policy at the George Washington University Law School, USA, Director, Competition Law Center; Former Non-Executive Director of the Competition and Markets Authority; former Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, USA.

A real pleasure to speak with one of the brightest, sharpest, wittiest minds of global antitrust Prof. Bill Kovacic. It is always such a delight to read and listen to his ideas: full of original metaphors, unexpected examples, humour and amicable irony – and yet strict and uncompromising when it comes to the gist of the point.
Earlier this year I participated at three events with Bill. Two narrowly focused antitrust gatherings, and one thematically much wider, interdisciplinary – and at all three, he was constantly making notes in his copybook, asking nuanced questions, even on the topics far at the periphery of the mainstream antitrust discourse, being truly engaged when others were yawing, checking their phones.
The main topics:
• US antitrust cases against BigTech: which are the most important, which are the most promising, what is at stake – Bill Kovacic’s taxonomy
• US merger control major redesign
• Is BigTech divestiture on the table?
• Why the AT&T cases are not “just” relevant – but really-really relevant for today
• Is the situation in contemporary competition law, economics and policy a truly revolutionary – or it is just one of the typical ‘regulatory cycles’ of the area? Had Prof. Kovacic seen this movie before?
• A holistic summary of the history of US antitrust law
Neo-Brandeisians
• If you have a big idea – keep nurturing it, so that when things change you are ready
• Ideas never die. They might decent, but the next policy shock – and they get recreated
• What does it take to build a new policy school: the elements, the players, the roles
• How did the Neo-Brandeisians “surround” the previously reigning antitrust mainstream actors?
• Building a successful antitrust agency: the ingredients and the recipe of success
• Antitrust enforcer as a music conductor – how do you decide what to play?
• The DMA and large enforcer discretion
• The role of judges in moderating competition policy
• Extraordinary responsibilities of the court in antitrust/DMA – some examples of judging crying (intellectually) for a help (as often society puts too heavy burden of responsibility upon them)
• A simple rule separating good enforcer discretion from bad
• An apocalyptic scenario: what if digital capabilities will be advanced faster by non-democratic regimes? Should liberal democracies be vigilant in this regard?
• Are best agencies practices transferable to other jurisdictions? If yes – what and how?
• What does it make to be a good teacher?
• Recommendations to academics and students

In previous 78th episode (published last Tuesday) we discussed with Prof. Shilpi Bhattacharya the latest development in India’s digital competition law. In the next 80th episode (to be published next week) we’ll have a conversation with another top-tier authority in antitrust – one of the leading practicing lawyers in the area of EU competition law Thomas Vinje.

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The Digital Markets Research Hub is an independent academic initiative aiming at scrutinising the functioning of competition/regulation in digital markets. We host one-to-one interviews with leading policymakers, regulators and practitioners. We also organise online mini-workshops inviting high-profile experts and academics in various fields of digital competition law & policy to discuss the most vibrant issues of the ongoing regulatory reforms in digital markets. While having our clear normative stand on the matters discussed within the hub, we value different views and invite relevant stakeholders and thinkers representing the whole spectrum of reasonable positions on how to regulate competition in digital markets. All our materials are available at YouTube channel, which you are very welcome to subscribe to. This interview is organised & conducted by Prof. Oles Andriychuk, School of Law, University of Exeter.