Competition Policy and the New Economy: A Transatlantic Perspective on Regulatory Challenges

The conference will explore the application of competition policy rules to aspects of the "new" economy, in particular where networks and information flows are leading to rapid changes in industrial structure. Both US and European views will be represented, and the prospects for avoiding further tensions in transatlantic relations over different approaches will be explored. The focus will be on four sectors that are currently undergoing structural changes through mergers and which have posed questions for transatlantic cooperation and for antitrust regulations; telecoms and internet access; e-commerce and internet marketplaces; airlines and code-sharing; and biotechnology and genomics. These same issues are also likely to be significant in global discussions of competition policy in the WTO and elsewhere.

The conference will bring together academic economists, lawyers and political scientists from the US and Europe along with invited private sector and government participants. To ensure the opportunity for intensive discussion, attendance will be limited to thirty people.