King’s College London and the Brussels School of Governance are delighted to invite you to this joint event on the Future of Competition Enforcement to celebrate the launch of a new partnership between the two institutions.
The circumstances of recent years – the rise of big tech giants, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and the rule of law crisis, to name but a few – have put competition law and enforcement to the test and have incited discussions about the need for substantive and procedural reforms. Looking ahead, Thomas Deisenhofer, Principal Adviser for ex post economic evaluation, DG Competition, and Griet Jans, Chief Economist at the Belgian Competition Authority, will reflect on the challenges and prospects for competition enforcement.
Join us to learn more on the thorny problems that courts and enforcers face when applying the competition rules, especially amidst economic, technological and other crises, as well as priorities and solutions going forward. This event also aims to support the professional development of graduates, connecting you with peers and members of the legal and competition community.
Schedule:
18.00 – 18.30 | Registration
18.30 – 18.40 | Opening Remarks
18.40 – 19.30 | The Future of Competition Enforcement
19:30 – 19.45 | Q&A
19.45 – 21.45 | Reception and Networking
Opening Remarks with Prof Dan Hunter, Executive Dean of The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, and Prof Karel De Gucht, President of the Brussels School of Governance.
Speakers: Thomas Deisenhofer, Principal Adviser for ex post economic evaluation, DG Competition, European Commission, and Griet Jans, Chief Economist, Belgian Competition Authority.
Discussion Coordinator: Dr Andriani Kalintiri, King’s College London.
This is an in-person only event. Tickets are limited and are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
About the speakers
Thomas Deisenhofer
Thomas Deisenhofer is since 2021 Principal Adviser for ex post economic evaluation in DG Competition. His main task is to develop and implement a strategy to step up ex post evaluation of past competition enforcement, to expand the measurement of the economic impact of enforcement and to initiate research on the functioning of competition in the economy. From 2011 to 2021 has was the Head of Unit E4, the merger control unit in DG Competition responsible for mergers in basic industries, manufacturing and agriculture and acted as case manager for cases such as Dow/DuPont, Bayer/Monsanto, ABI/SAB Miller and GE/Alstom. In 2009 and 2010 he held the same position in the unit responsible for merger control in the fields of telecommunications, media and IT. Previously he was from 2005 to March 2009 the assistant responsible for State aid control of Philip Lowe, Director General of DG Competition. In that function he was responsible for assisting the Director General on state aid cases during the banking crisis. From 1998 to 2002 he worked as a "référendaire" for Advocate General F.G. Jacobs at the European Court of Justice.
Griet Jans
Griet Jans is Chief Economist and part of the Managing Board of the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA). She supervises economic analyses in merger and antitrust investigations and she contributes to the development of the set of economic instruments, screening methods and internal training programs of the BCA. She joined the BCA in 2012, working on a large number of competition cases, mainly complex merger cases, in a broad range of sectors. Since 2018, Griet is the secretary-general of the Association of Competition Economics (ACE), a renowned international non-profit network that brings together competition economists from government, academia and the private sector. She further co-organises the annual conference of Competition, a specialised journal on competition and competition law in Belgium. Before joining the BCA, Griet worked as an economic expert and policy advisor on competitiveness and innovation at IDEA Consult, and as a research assistant at the Department of Economics at the Catholic University of Leuven. She holds a Master of Science in Economics from the same university, where she still gives an annual guest lecture in competition economics.