Stavros Makris: Competition Law & Legal Philosophy | Adjudicating Hard Cases | Adam Smith | DMA

Dr Stavros Makris is a Lecturer in Law at University College London and one of the leading voices in the discussions on the legal theoretical aspects of competition law & policy.
It is always a pleasure to discuss legal-theoretical aspects of competition law, and this time also record an in-depth conversation with one of the leading thinkers bridging competition law and jurisprudence, Dr. Stavros Markis from UCL.Stavros shared truly thought-provoking ideas on the nature of competition law and policy, the theory of antitrust adjudication, and a range of other essential aspects of competition law theory.

Below are time-coded links to different parts of our conversation.

00:02:15 The phenomenon of reasonable disagreement
00:04:27 ‘Openness and Integrity’
00:06:00 Can economics be value-free?
00:06:40 Ronald Dworkin and antitrust
00:11:00 The problem with excessive reliance on price theory
00:12:30 The problem with excessive openness of antitrust
00:16:40 Recipe for dealing with reasonable disagreement
00:23:05 The problem of the benevolent dictator in antitrust
00:27:20 The problem of value judgments in competition adjudication
00:31:20 Is Stavros optimistic about the enforcement system’s capacity to learn?
00:32:30 Are DMA obligations objectives or instruments?
00:37:20 Prioritizing cases
00:40:20 Legal interpretation in competition law adjudication
01:00:10 Hard cases
01:06:42 Adam Smith and competition law
01:12:40 Is competition an essentially contested concept?
01:16:45 Activities of the UCL Centre for Economics, Law, and Society
01:20:35 Recommendations to students

Previous episode (No. 131): interview with Miguel Sousa Ferro on private enforcement of EU competition law, available here:    • Miguel Sousa Ferro, Private Enforcement of...  

Next episode (No. 133): PhD Café #5 (together with Magali Eben) conversation with Boxi Wu (Oxford) and Leevi Saari (Amsterdam) on the political economy of AI governance: industrial and competition policies perspective.
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The Digital Markets Research Hub is an independent academic initiative aiming at scrutinising the functioning of competition/regulation in digital markets. We host one-to-one interviews with leading policymakers, regulators and practitioners. We also organise online mini-workshops inviting high-profile experts and academics in various fields of digital competition law & policy to discuss the most vibrant issues of the ongoing regulatory reforms in digital markets. While having our clear normative stand on the matters discussed within the hub, we value different views and invite relevant stakeholders and thinkers representing the whole spectrum of reasonable positions on how to regulate competition in digital markets. Our purpose is not to convey a message, but to contribute to the discussion; the main criterion for selecting invitees is the easy-going way they share their expertise. All our materials are available at YouTube channel, which you are very welcome to subscribe to. This interview is organised & conducted by Prof. Oles Andriychuk, School of Law, University of Exeter.