A Positive Program for Antitrust? Enforcement in Times of Political Tides

Abstract

The rise of Big Tech led to a still ongoing debate over the shape of antitrust enforcement. Many of such discussions take place in the United States and focus on the validity of consumer welfare standard, often leading each party of the discussion to entrench its position. In the European context, however, the success of the consumer welfare standard was never so full as in the United States, making way instead to the adoption of a ‘more economic approach’. This article discusses how the current tension within antitrust could be looked at from the European point of view. It suggests that antitrust might be subject to a perpetual movement between what has already been described in European antitrust as the more economic approach and what could be now termed as a more political approach. The article investigates what elements could be seen as part of such a more political approach. It leaves aside the question of which approach is the ‘correct’ one and attempts instead to look for ways of adjusting enforcement in times of change. The article concludes that while the more economic and more political approach are at odds, there appear to be ways of easing tensions within antitrust when political conditions change. Big Tech, Chicago School, consumer welfare, efficiency, enforcement, more economic approach, neobrandeisianism, ordoliberalism, populism, public goals