E.CA Expert Forum 2024

4:00 – 4:15 pm: Registration & coffee

4:15 – 5:15 pm: Panel 1 – Self-preferences and AI
Speakers: Professor Leslie M. Marx (Duke University and Bates-White), Carlota Reyners Fontana (European Commission), Gregory Crawford (Professor of Economics, University Zurich and Chief Economist at Zalando) and Mike Walker (Competition and Markets Authority)

5:15 – 6:15 pm: Panel 2 – The Role of Competition Policy in the Transformation of the European Economy
Speakers: Professor Jan De Loecker (KU Leuven), Professor Mathias Dewatripont, (Université libre de Bruxelles), Griet Jans (Belgian Competition Authority) and Professor Lars-Hendrik Röller (E.CA Economics)

6:15 – 6:30 pm: Closing remarks by Olivier Guersent (European Commission)

6:30 – 10:00 pm: Walking dinner and guided tour of the Fondation Boghossian and the exhibition entitled “Josef and Anni Albers, Iconic couple of modernism”

Abuses are back at the forefront of discussions. In December 2008 the Commission adopted the Guidance on Enforcement Priorities in applying Article 102 to exclusionary conduct. Since then, the Commission, EU courts and national competition agencies have taken numerous decisions.

In March 2023, the Commission amended its Guidance Paper and launched the process leading to the future adoption of Guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance (for which a draft is expected in summer 2024). The deadline to comply with the Digital Markets Act (inspired by the Commission’s practice on abuses) was 6 March 2024.

One often discussed theory of harm is self-preferencing. The Commission imposed a €2,42 billion fine to Google for unfairly favouring its comparison-shopping service on its search engine (Google Shopping decision upheld in 2021 by the GC).

More recently, the Commission accepted commitments offered by Amazon over a bias in granting access to its Buy Box and its Prime programme. Designated gatekeepers cannot favour their products and services over those of rivals under the DMA (Art. 6(5)).

Yet, self-preferencing is not easy to define, identify and monitor with certainty, especially in a context where companies increasingly rely on AI and other automated methods to market their products and services.

The transformation of the European economy towards climate neutrality is perhaps the most pressing economic issue for Europe. Our continent also faces other economic headwinds such as the ageing of its population, the digitalization of the economy, and the reshoring of the production in a more challenging geopolitical environment.

As a new Commission will be formed in autumn 2024, numerous questions emerge regarding the right economic policy to achieve these two objectives, in particular concerning the role of competition policy, state aid and industrial policy.