Substance Over Slogans: Competition and the Wealth of Nations
About:
On Friday, March 13, 2026 the International Center for Law & Economics, IE University, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterstam co-hosted a conference in Rome, Italy. A recording and photos of the event will be available on our webpage shortly, please check back for updates.
Our aim for this conference was to look past the headlines and oft-politicized arguments that have defined the last several years of competition-policy discourse to examine the current academic foundations of antitrust through a rigorous assessment of the legal and economic state of play—this year with a deliberately multidisciplinary lens that pairs subject-matter experts from adjacent fields with antitrust scholars and practitioners.
The competition-policy landscape is shifting rapidly, and making sense of it now requires a genuinely multidisciplinary vantage point. This year’s conference aimed to assemble subject-matter experts from fields as diverse as the AI, cloud, and chips stack; management and productivity; geopolitics and digital sovereignty; venture capital and bankruptcy. By pairing these voices with leading antitrust scholars, we aimed to translate external evidence into concrete implications for enforcement, remedies, and process—clarifying, for example, when vertical integration in the AI stack is pro-competitive, how reallocation conditions shape contestability, where industrial policy complements rivalry, and which institutional guardrails best sustain competitive markets over time.
Against this backdrop, our Rome conference brought together an unparalleled assembly of top academics, influential policymakers, and business experts to discuss the state of the art of economic and legal research and to translate external expertise into concrete implications for enforcement, remedies, and institutional design. Each session featured a concise 10–15 minute briefing by a subject-matter expert, followed by a moderated conversation with antitrust discussants.
Our goal for this evet was to investigate the current state of antitrust policy, focusing on substance over slogans.
Hosted by:
The International Center for Law & Economics (Geoffrey A. Manne and Dirk Auer)
The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Law & Technology Institute (Thibault Schrepel)
IE Law School Madrid (Francisco Marcos and Lazar Radic)
Speakers:
Ian Adams (Executive Director, International Center for Law & Economics)
Dirk Auer (Director of Competition Policy, International Center for Law & Economics & Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Liège)
Gustavo Augusto Freitas de Lima (President, Brazilian Administrative Counsel for Economic Defense (CADE) & Former Assistant Deputy Director of Economic Policy, General Secretariat of the Presidency of Brazil)
David Bosco (Professor & Director, Aix-Marseille University Faculty of Law and Political Science & Director, Center for Economic Law, Aix-Marseille University)
Harry G. Broadman (Principal, WestExec Advisors & Senior Economist, RAND & Former Chief of Staff, President’s Council of Economic Advisors (U.S.))
Giuseppe Colangelo (Jean Monnet Chair in European Innovation Policy, University of Basilicata & Senior Scholar of Competition Policy, International Center for Law & Economics)
Juliana Oliveira Domingues (Professor of Economic Law and Antitrust, University of São Paulo & Former Attorney General, Brazilian Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE))
Hon. Douglas H. Ginsburg (Senior Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia & Professor of Law, George Mason University Law School)
Nicola Giocoli (Full Professor of Economics, University of Pisa Faculty of Law)
Andrei Hagiu (Professor of Information Systems, Boston University Questrom School of Business)
M. Todd Henderson (Michael J. Marks Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School)
Herbert Hovenkamp (James G. Dinan University Professor, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School)
Frédéric Jenny (Emeritus Professor of Economics, ESSEC Business School & Former Vice President, French Competition Authority)
Thomas A. Lambert (Wall Chair in Corporate Law and Governance, University of Missouri School of Law)
Maria Maciá (Associate Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School)
Mariateresa Maggiolino (Full Professor of Economic Law, Università Bocconi)
Geoffrey A. Manne (President & Founder, International Center for Law & Economics & Visiting Professor of Law, IE University)
Francisco Marcos (Professor of Law, IE University Law School)
A. Douglas Melamed (Visiting Fellow, Stanford Law School & Former Acting Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division)
Eduardo Pérez Motta (Founding Partner, Pérez Motta Estrada & Former President, Mexican Federal Competition Commission)
Randal C. Picker (James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School)
Lazar Radic (Assistant Professor of Law, IE University Law School & Senior Scholar of Competition Policy, International Center for Law & Economics)
Pierre Régibeau (Competition Expert, Analysis Group & Former Chief Economist, EU Commission Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP))
Thibault Schrepel (Associate Professor of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam & Faculty Affiliate, Stanford University CodeX Center)
Eric Seufert (General Partner, Heracles Capital & Analyst and Podcast Host, Mobile Dev Memo)
Lauren Wagner (Director, AI-Enabled Policymaking Project & Fellow, Abundance Institute)
Koren W. Wong-Ervin (Partner, Jones Day & Former Counsel for Intellectual Property & International Antitrust, U.S. Federal Trade Commission)
Elena Yndurain (Professor, IE Business School)
Recording & Photos:
Please check back shortly for the full recording and photos of the event.
