Blockchain + Antitrust

Blockchain + Antitrust
Author: Schrepel, Thibault
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2021-09-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1800885539

This innovative and original book explores the relationship between blockchain and antitrust, highlighting the mutual benefits that stem from cooperation between the two and providing a unique perspective on how law and technology could cooperate.

Antitrust Settlements

Antitrust Settlements
Author: Giovanna Massarotto
Publisher:
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2019-10-17
Genre: Antitrust law
ISBN: 9789403511337

Competition enforcement authorities use settlements as a tool to ensure compliance with antitrust law. Companies can make commitments to remedy breaches, ensuring that they avoid litigation and potential fines and reputational damage. The author of this highly original and innovative book shows that, rather than fines or arguing principles of competition law in litigation, antitrust settlements (namely U.S. consent decrees and EU commitment decisions) hold the key to globally effective enforcement, particularly in the digital and blockchain era. Antitrust law does not necessarily need to be abolished, but rather should be fully exploited as an economic regulation led by antitrust settlements. In supporting her thesis, the author examines such elements of competition enforcement as the following: drawbacks of allowing the courts to regulate markets; whether antitrust settlements sacrifice antitrust deterrence; how settlements rapidly and surgically regulate markets; comparative analysis between U.S. consent decrees and EU commitment decisions; economic analysis on the adoption of antitrust settlements in both the U.S. and EU markets from 2013 to 2018; fundamental role of antitrust settlements in regulating the current digital markets; and comprehensive description on how to use antitrust settlements to regulate the data industry. With its thorough guidance on U.S. consent decrees and EU commitment decisions from their functioning to their characteristics and procedure--and its extensive treatment of the main antitrust remedies available and used in enforcing of antitrust law in both the U.S. and EU--the book provides both an economic and a legal analysis of the functioning and the scope of antitrust settlements. It assesses the influence of decisions on companies' behavior and agencies' practice, using economic analysis to show the procompetitive or anticompetitive effects of remedies, with special attention to digital markets. Because markets have become so dynamic and unpredictable that is difficult to preserve efficiency, the author says, there is a little room for law--economic regulation is a better fit. This book is a springboard to further investigate how a simple antitrust enforcement tool, having turned competition law into an economic regulation policy, can drive our economy, leading both the antitrust and regulatory interventions in tackling today's market challenges.

Blockchain and Public Law

Blockchain and Public Law
Author: Pollicino, Oreste
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-07-31
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1839100796

This important and topical book provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges raised by blockchain from the perspective of public law. It considers the ways in which traditional categories of public law such as sovereignty, citizenship and territory are shaped, as well as the impact of blockchain technology on fundamental rights and democratic values.

Algorithmic Antitrust

Algorithmic Antitrust
Author: Aurelien Portuese
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2022-01-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030858596

Algorithms are ubiquitous in our daily lives. They affect the way we shop, interact, and make exchanges on the marketplace. In this regard, algorithms can also shape competition on the marketplace. Companies employ algorithms as technologically innovative tools in an effort to edge out competitors. Antitrust agencies have increasingly recognized the competitive benefits, but also competitive risks that algorithms entail. Over the last few years, many algorithm-driven companies in the digital economy have been investigated, prosecuted and fined, mostly for allegedly unfair algorithm design. Legislative proposals aim at regulating the way algorithms shape competition. Consequently, a so-called “algorithmic antitrust” theory and practice have also emerged. This book provides a more innovation-driven perspective on the way antitrust agencies should approach algorithmic antitrust. To date, the analysis of algorithmic antitrust has predominantly been shaped by pessimistic approaches to the risks of algorithms on the competitive environment. With the benefit of the lessons learned over the last few years, this book assesses whether these risks have actually materialized and whether antitrust laws need to be adapted accordingly. Effective algorithmic antitrust requires to adequately assess the pro- and anti-competitive effects of algorithms on the basis of concrete evidence and innovation-related concerns. With a particular emphasis on the European perspective, this book brings together experts and scrutinizes on the implications of algorithmic antitrust for regulation and innovation.

Blockchain for International Security

Blockchain for International Security
Author: Cindy Vestergaard
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2021-10-25
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3030862402

This book intersects the distributed ledger technology (DLT) community with the international security community. Given the increasing application of blockchain technology in the fields of business and international development, there is a growing body of study on other use cases. For instance, can blockchain have a significant role in preserving and improving international security? This book explores this question in the context of preventing the proliferation of some of the most dangerous materials in the world—items that if not secured can lend to the development of weapons of mass destruction. It considers how blockchain can increase efficiencies in the global trade of nuclear and chemical materials and technology, thereby increasing assurances related to compliance with international nonproliferation and disarmament treaties.

Blockchain, Law and Governance

Blockchain, Law and Governance
Author: Benedetta Cappiello
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2020-10-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030527220

This volume explores from a legal perspective, how blockchain works. Perhaps more than ever before, this new technology requires us to take a multidisciplinary approach. The contributing authors, which include distinguished academics, public officials from important national authorities, and market operators, discuss and demonstrate how this technology can be a driver of innovation and yield positive effects in our societies, legal systems and economic/financial system. In particular, they present critical analyses of the potential benefits and legal risks of distributed ledger technology, while also assessing the opportunities offered by blockchain, and possible modes of regulating it. Accordingly, the discussions chiefly focus on the law and governance of blockchain, and thus on the paradigm shift that this technology can bring about.

Regulation of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technologies

Regulation of Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technologies
Author: Rosario Girasa
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2018-06-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3319785095

The book highlights the rise of Bitcoin, which is based on blockchain technology, and some of the many types of coins and tokens that emerged thereafter. Although Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have made national and international news with their dramatic rise and decline in value, nevertheless the underlying technology is being adopted by both industry and governments, which have noted the benefits of speed, cost efficiency, and protection from hacking. Based on numerous downloaded articles, laws, cases, and other materials, the book discusses the digital transformation, the types of cryptocurrencies, key actors, and the benefits and risks. It also addresses legal issues of digital technology and the evolving U.S. federal regulation. The varying treatment by individual U.S. states is reviewed together with attempts by organizations to arrive at a uniform regulatory regime. Both civil and criminal prosecutions are highlighted with an examination of the major cases that have arisen. Whether and how to tax cryptocurrency transactions both in the U.S. and internationally are analyzed, and ends with a speculative narrative of future developments.

The Cambridge Handbook of Antitrust, Intellectual Property, and High Tech

The Cambridge Handbook of Antitrust, Intellectual Property, and High Tech
Author: Roger D. Blair
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 873
Release: 2017-04-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108211178

This Cambridge Handbook, edited by Roger D. Blair and D. Daniel Sokol, brings together a group of world-renowned professors in the fields of law and economics to assess the theory and practice of antitrust, intellectual property, and high tech. With the increased globalization of antitrust, a better understanding of how law and economics shape this interface will help academics, policymakers, and practitioners to understand the existing state of academic literature, its limits, and its relevance to real-world antitrust. The book will be an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand academic and policy considerations shaping the world of antitrust, intellectual property, and high tech.

Regulating Blockchain

Regulating Blockchain
Author: Philipp Hacker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 612
Release: 2019-08-29
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0192579509

Less than a decade after the Financial Crisis, we are witnessing the fast emergence of a new financial order driven by three different, yet interconnected, dynamics: first, the rapid application of technology - such as big data, machine learning, and distributed computing - to banking, lending, and investing, in particular with the emergence of virtual currencies and digital finance; second, a disintermediation fuelled by the rise of peer-to-peer lending platforms and crowd investment which challenge the traditional banking model and may, over time, lead to a transformation of the way both retail and corporate customers bank; and, third, a tendency of de-bureaucratisation under which new platforms and technologies challenge established organisational patterns that regulate finance and manage the money supply. These changes are to a significant degree driven by the development of blockchain technology. The aim of this book is to understand the technological and business potential of the blockchain technology and to reflect on its legal challenges. The book mainly focuses on the challenges blockchain technology has so far faced in its first application in the areas of virtual money and finance, as well as those that it will inevitably face (and is partially already facing, as the SEC Investigative Report of June 2017 and an ongoing SEC securities fraud investigation show) as its domain of application expands in other fields of economic activity such as smart contracts and initial coin offerings. The book provides an unparalleled critical analysis of the disruptive potential of this technology for the economy and the legal system and contributes to current thinking on the role of law in harvesting and shaping innovation.