Are the tech giants too powerful? Does the dominance of Facebook, Google and other digital platforms threaten competition, innovation and consumer welfare? Competition in digital markets is agitating policymakers around the world. In the UK, the EU and in the United States, governments are attempting to reform their antitrust enforcement regimes to allow proactive intervention to tackle the characteristics of digital markets that they believe existing tools can’t deal with.

To mark the 75th anniversary of Hayek’s seminal lecture The Meaning of Competition, the IEA and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation will bring together leading academics, officials and practitioners to debate current conceptions and misconceptions of the meaning of competition in the digital era.

There will be keynote speeches from Michael Grenfell, executive director of enforcement at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and DCMS minister Chris Philp MP who will talk about DCMS’s role in competitive digital markets, as well as contributions from influential thinkers including Diane Coyle of Cambridge University and Stanford’s Thibault Schrepel.

Please find the full programme schedule attached – the event will take place on Thursday 4^th November 08.45-6pm at the Institute of Economic Affairs in Westminster.

You can watch the proceedings via Zoom from 9:15am. Register here.