The Global Value Chain in Competition Law

On February 1, Institute Director Alexey Ivanov took part in the international conference "The Global Value Chain in Competition Law", organised by Institute partner, the Centre for Law, Economics, and Society at University College London. 

The conference, held in London, was devoted to the discussion of the various facets of the concept of global value chains in antitrust law. The global consolidation of industries poses new questions for antitrust authorities in terms of interaction with the powerful entities operating at the level of the factors of production, taking into account the availability of wider issues of public policy and existing international commitments in different areas. The first part of the conference was given to a general analysis of this little-known but interesting field of competition law and the issue of the involvement of the wider public interest in the area of ​​competition protection policy and consideration of the distributive effects with a global perspective.

The second and third phases of activity concerned sectoral issues and studied how the concept of global value chains can change our perspective and consideration of the role of antitrust regulation in areas such as the global digital chain and the global food chain. Problems and phenomena - especially search engines, the use of big data, the development of digital platforms, network neutrality, the growing consolidation of the factors of production in the food industry, retailers and global strategies, etc. - all were considered from the perspective of the theory of global value chains with a view to critically examining established orientations of scientific thought in the field of competition law and economics, and the possibility of a revision to the current model of policy on protection of competition was discussed.

Speeches at the conference were made by the world's leading researchers and practitioners, representatives of international organisations and national regulators from Europe, the US and the BRICS countries.