Fall 2025
The Network Law Review publishes four issues a year. Articles go online one by one and are gathered by season. This issue closed with 21 publications.
Contents
Newest first15 December 2025
The Enigmas of Monopoly Power
Market power can be assessed in antitrust cases by two methods often described as “alternatives”. For unilateral conduct, however, they are inconsistent. Courts insist on market shares well above 50%, which entails that only one firm can be a monopolist.
Read The Enigmas of Monopoly PowerCite The Enigmas of Monopoly Power
12 December 2025
Understanding Digital Sovereignty in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
William Lehr, Volker Stocker and Jason Whalley
EU Digital Sovereignty has emerged as a key policy topic amid growing geopolitical tensions fuelled by an AI arms race in which corporate investment and government support appear mutually reinforcing.
Read Understanding Digital Sovereignty in the Age of Artificial IntelligenceCite Understanding Digital Sovereignty in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
8 December 2025
Return-to-Office Policies and AI Knowledge Sharing: A Game-Theoretic Analysis
Elizabeth J. Durango-Cohen, Yidan Sun and Liad Wagman
We develop a game-theoretic model to analyze optimal workplace arrangements in AI-enhanced teams where knowledge sharing is subject to location-dependent costs. Extending principal-agent theory to incorporate remote collaboration frictions, our model shows how return-to-office (RTO) policies affect…
Read Return-to-Office Policies and AI Knowledge Sharing: A Game-Theoretic AnalysisCite Return-to-Office Policies and AI Knowledge Sharing: A Game-Theoretic Analysis
5 December 2025
European Digital Sovereignty: From Naïveté to Sustainability?
Two decades of hyperactive EU digital rule-making have not delivered “digital sovereignty,” but instead exposed a strategic naïveté: Brussels built a Digital Single Market that turbocharged non-European cloud and platform incumbents.
Read European Digital Sovereignty: From Naïveté to Sustainability?Cite European Digital Sovereignty: From Naïveté to Sustainability?
3 December 2025
Revisiting Antitrust in the Age of Great-Powers Competition
US antitrust law has traditionally paid little attention to global competitiveness and industrial policy objectives. This reflects a commitment to enabling the free play of competitive forces to determine market outcomes and an aversion to protectionist policies that may favor inefficient “national…
Read Revisiting Antitrust in the Age of Great-Powers CompetitionCite Revisiting Antitrust in the Age of Great-Powers Competition
1 December 2025
EU Digital Regulation as Industry Shaping Policy: The DSA, Brussels Effect, and Global Competitiveness
The European Union’s recent wave of digital regulations, especially the Digital Services Act (DSA), highlights a strategic use of law as an instrument of industrial policy and global digital influence.
Read EU Digital Regulation as Industry Shaping Policy: The DSA, Brussels Effect, and Global CompetitivenessCite EU Digital Regulation as Industry Shaping Policy: The DSA, Brussels Effect, and Global Competitiveness
26 November 2025
The Rise of Industrial Policy in Europe and the Search for Growth and Innovation: A Golden Opportunity for Competition Authorities
This paper argues that the unintended and unanticipated costs of globalization revealed during the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic have led to a renewed embrace of industrial policy. The rising market concentration and profit margins have also contributed to this development.
Read The Rise of Industrial Policy in Europe and the Search for Growth and Innovation: A Golden Opportunity for Competition AuthoritiesCite The Rise of Industrial Policy in Europe and the Search for Growth and Innovation: A Golden Opportunity for Competition Authorities
24 November 2025
AI, Data, And Leveraging Strategies: Implications For Antitrust
In product markets that rely heavily on artificial intelligence (AI), firms both use data and generate data. For a multiproduct firm, the data generated by one product will often have spillover benefits on the firm’s other AI-enabled products, increasing their quality.
Read AI, Data, And Leveraging Strategies: Implications For AntitrustCite AI, Data, And Leveraging Strategies: Implications For Antitrust
21 November 2025
Antitrust and Great Powers Rivalry
“Great nations” rivalry includes all aspects of economic rivalry, so it is natural that the great nations consider antitrust a weapon in their arsenals, particularly in areas such as military, technology, culture, and finance.
Read Antitrust and Great Powers RivalryCite Antitrust and Great Powers Rivalry
19 November 2025
China and the Paradox of Protectionism?
The very idea of industrial policy implies that industrial capabilities, and thus comparative advantages, are malleable and can be deliberately created. So perhaps in attempting to deny a competitor our own trade and knowledge, we might unintentionally create incentives for the competitor to…
Read China and the Paradox of Protectionism?Cite China and the Paradox of Protectionism?
17 November 2025
Industrial Policy and Competitiveness: Non-Tariff Barriers and Incentives to Innovate
Countries use non-tariff barriers (NTBs) as instruments of industrial policy. NTBs often are difficult to observe and hard to adjust because they are part of national regulations. NTBs are inflexible in comparison to tariffs. The number of NTBs has expanded significantly.
Read Industrial Policy and Competitiveness: Non-Tariff Barriers and Incentives to InnovateCite Industrial Policy and Competitiveness: Non-Tariff Barriers and Incentives to Innovate
14 November 2025
A Return of Industrial Policies? Only a Partial and Dystopic One
This article, an abridged version of much more detailed analyses in Dosi et al. (2025) and Dosi (2025), addresses three interrelated questions, namely: back to the basics, what are industrial policies? Granted that, is a new return of industrial policies actually in the making?
Read A Return of Industrial Policies? Only a Partial and Dystopic OneCite A Return of Industrial Policies? Only a Partial and Dystopic One
12 November 2025
Special Issue: Industrial Policy and Competitiveness
Thibault Schrepel and Dirk Auer
Industrial policy is back in fashion. Governments in the United States, Europe, and China increasingly deploy subsidies, trade restrictions, and regulations to promote domestic champions and secure supply chains.
Read Special Issue: Industrial Policy and CompetitivenessCite Special Issue: Industrial Policy and Competitiveness
6 November 2025
Competition Stories: January 2025 – June 2025
Mario Siragusa, Alice Setari, Francesco Trombetta and Neri Conti
On April 23, 2025, the Commission once again made headlines with multi-million-euro fines on two Tech giants: EUR 500 million for Apple and EUR 200 million for Meta. Yet this time was different. Fines did not follow the familiar script of lengthy investigations under decades-old antitrust rules.
Read Competition Stories: January 2025 – June 2025Cite Competition Stories: January 2025 – June 2025
27 October 2025
An effects-based approach to the DMA?
Eckart Bueren and Marcel Zober
The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) uses per se prohibitions to regulate “gatekeepers,” prioritising rapid enforcement over case-specific effects analysis. This article assesses whether, despite the absence of a formal efficiency defence, certain efficiencies—particularly those enhancing…
Read An effects-based approach to the DMA?Cite An effects-based approach to the DMA?
7 October 2025
Antitrust Antidote: June-September 2025
Koren W. Wong-Ervin, Jeremy Sandford and Nathan Wilson
There were a number of decisions from June through September 2025 including: (1) a fifth recent decision (U.S. et al. v. Apple) refusing to apply the more defense-friendly refusal-to-deal standard; (2) yet another lower court decision (involving the “famed” Hermès Birkin bag) declining to apply a…
Read Antitrust Antidote: June-September 2025Cite Antitrust Antidote: June-September 2025
1 October 2025
The Future-Proof Fantasy of AI Regulation
The EU’s quest for “future-proof” AI regulation is a fantasy. AI evolves through emergent properties that defy prediction, yet Brussels continues to draft rules with an industrial, linear mindset. The result is a regulatory immune system that can detect but not respond.
Read The Future-Proof Fantasy of AI RegulationCite The Future-Proof Fantasy of AI Regulation
29 September 2025
Principal-Agent Dynamics and Digital (Platform) Economics in the Age of Agentic AI
Volker Stocker and William Lehr
This article applies the principal–agent framework to the use of autonomous AI systems in digital markets. It examines the challenge of aligning AI agents with the interests of end-users, given that many systems may also reflect the objectives of developers, platform providers, or advertisers.
Read Principal-Agent Dynamics and Digital (Platform) Economics in the Age of Agentic AICite Principal-Agent Dynamics and Digital (Platform) Economics in the Age of Agentic AI
26 September 2025
Personalized Competition Law: The New Frontier of AI Market Governance
Artificial Intelligence technologies prompt several doctrinal shifts in competition law. For AI market governance, this means moving toward personalized enforcement. Rather than applying one-size-fits-all legal tests, regulators may need to tailor rules and liability standards by sector, by actor…
Read Personalized Competition Law: The New Frontier of AI Market GovernanceCite Personalized Competition Law: The New Frontier of AI Market Governance
24 September 2025
Implementing the European AI Act: Balancing Horizontal Consistency with Sector-Specific Requirements
The European Union’s AI Act applies across a broad range of domains and use cases, aiming to promote horizontal consistency and prevent the sectoral fragmentation of AI governance.
Read Implementing the European AI Act: Balancing Horizontal Consistency with Sector-Specific RequirementsCite Implementing the European AI Act: Balancing Horizontal Consistency with Sector-Specific Requirements
22 September 2025
The New AI Regulation in Korea: Problems of Jurisdictional Overlaps
Each country has distinct governmental and political systems, which reflect its unique approaches to digital regulation. Korea stands out for its proactive regulatory policies in the digital markets, including the field of artificial intelligence.
Read The New AI Regulation in Korea: Problems of Jurisdictional OverlapsCite The New AI Regulation in Korea: Problems of Jurisdictional Overlaps