Interviews and Analysis

Iskandar Ismail has been chief executive of Malaysia’s Competition Commission since October 2018. In an interview with GCR, he discussed pursuing legal reforms in response to a high-profile loss at Malaysia’s top court and prioritising a non-voluntary merger control regime as part of a suite of amendments to the country’s competition law.

08 April 2022

John Fingleton stepped down as chief executive of what was then the UK’s Office of Fair Trading 10 years ago this summer. A decade on, the founder of Fingleton Associates reflects on why the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is now the world’s fifth-most important antitrust enforcer, how the country’s concurrency regime falls short and why governments should consider letting merger reviews play out before investigating national security concerns.

01 April 2022

Competition authorities on either side of the Atlantic and beyond are signalling greater scrutiny of pharmaceutical mergers, with a view to protecting innovation. Baker McKenzie attorneys Fiona Carlin, Anthony Gamble, Dan Graulich and Yana Ermak consider the justifications for this tougher approach and explore the potential chilling effect it might have.

30 March 2022

UK-based academic Rachael Kent filed a class action claim against Apple in May 2021, seeking £1.5 billion in damages on behalf of an estimated 19.6 million consumers who allegedly overpaid for their applications due to the company’s apparently anticompetitive practices on its App Store. Kent spoke to GCR about why the claim was a no-brainer and why she was unwilling to wait for agencies to conclude their own investigations into Apple before launching the proposed class action.

04 March 2022

After an unprecedented three terms at the helm of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims will pass the torch next month to Gina Cass-Gottlieb. In an interview with GCR, Sims looked back at the enormous progress his agency has made in the past 11 years, including taking on challenging cases, pushing for legislative reforms and becoming a global leader in the debate about digital platforms.

25 February 2022

Ruben Maximiano, a senior competition expert at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, explores the importance of competition in shifting the world toward a greener future and why the legal and policy focus may need to move from short-run price effects to longer-term analyses.

22 February 2022

Justin Le Patourel’s damages claim against telecoms company BT became only the second class action to be certified by the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal in September 2021. Ahead of an appeal hearing scheduled for next month, Le Patourel spoke to GCR about the case, his experience of the UK’s class action regime, the importance of opt-out claims for especially vulnerable consumers and the creation of a network of UK-based class representatives.

18 February 2022

Arsenio Balisacan was appointed as the inaugural chair of the Philippine Competition Commission in January 2016. He spoke to GCR about the temporary suspension of his agency’s merger review powers during the covid-19 pandemic, the multiplication of behavioural cases after reallocating staff to conduct probes, and the importance of consent orders and settlements.

07 February 2022

Reiko Aoki has been an economist and commissioner at Japan’s Fair Trade Commission since 2016. She spoke to GCR about the benefits of her agency’s voluntary commitment system, the authority’s ongoing pharmaceutical cases and the necessity of continued international cooperation in digital markets.

31 January 2022

After six years as head of the Norwegian Competition Authority, Lars Sørgard will step down on 19 January and return to his role as a professor of economics at the Norwegian School of Economics. Sørgard spoke to GCR about the authority’s accomplishments during his tenure and addressed criticism about the agency's enforcement priorities and political interference.

11 January 2022