Letter From The Editor

This year, as could not be otherwise, our Journal addresses the phenomenon of disruptive innovation and how new technological firms and the sharing economy are challenging authorities around the globe, including competition authorities.

We have witnessed, in particular, the rise –and partial fall- of Uber in different cities in most of the countries with competition laws. Regulators are hesitant whether to allow a service beloved by citizens to operate, or to rigidly enforce all the applicable laws, with the consequent ban of Uber services in many cases. Countries are facing a myriad of alternatives to tackle this problem, from adopting brand new regulations for this type of market, to amending or trying to fit them in the current ones, to simply leaving markets to decide what is best.

In our first symposium, we have contributions from leaders of two of the most prominent competition agencies in Europe. On the one hand, Alex Chisholm and Nelson Jung from CMA discuss how antitrust regulation ought to change and explains why more ex post and less ex ante regulation is required. In their opinion, blanket solutions are not appropriate and they fail to capture the specific circumstances these businesses operate in. Thus, acting prematurely with broad-brush ex ante legislation poses significant risk for business development and innovation. On the other hand, Bruno Lasserre from the French Autorité de la Concurrence, also shares a skeptical view on adopting new regulations. Somet