AAI’s Kathleen Bradish Talks Merger Enforcement at the 13th Annual GCR Live: Law Leaders Global Conference

AAI’s Kathleen Bradish joined a panel of experts at the Global Competition Review’s 13th Annual GCR Live: Law Leaders Global Conference on the panel entitled “Mergers: Evolution or revolution in evidentiary trends”.

From the panel description:

The dominant narrative among many merger control authorities – across the globe, but especially in the EU, UK and US – is that enforcement has been too lax in the past, and that deals should be easier to review, investigations should be more comprehensive, and stricter standards of review should be applied.

This panel will consider whether under-enforcement is a real, or simply a perceived phenomenon, and which key authorities are changing their merger control regimes. It will also examine the evolving role of economists in antitrust merger reviews and whether there is a trend towards reduced reliance on economic evidence. It will detail possible alternative forms of evidence and consider the “right” balance between economic evidence and other types of evidence, such as internal documents and market feedback. Will the simultaneous pursuit of stricter merger enforcement and reduced econometrics result in a credibility gap, and do the types of economic analysis relied on for merger review need to evolve in response to changing theories of harm?

Moderator:
Megan Wolf, Partner, Crowell & Moring

Panel:
Elizabeth Bailey, Vice President, Charles River Associates
Vaishali Bhatia, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, HF Sinclair
Kathleen Bradish, Acting President, American Antitrust Institute
Ilene Gotts, Partner, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
Jenine Hulsmann, Partner, Weil, Gotshal & Manges