On 8 July, Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, delivered a speech at the session “Recent Developments in Digital Markets”, held as part of the 23rd session of the UNCTAD Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Law and Policy.
During the discussion, experts addressed how competition regulation can adapt to the development of digital markets, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the work of regulatory authorities, and the prospects for international cooperation in promoting effective competition.
In his remarks, Alexey Ivanov highlighted the new challenges facing competition law in the context of economic digitalization. The growing complexity and rapid evolution of the digital environment require a reassessment of traditional approaches to antitrust enforcement, as existing enforcement tools and theories of harm do not always fully capture new forms of market behaviour. In Alexey’s view, competition authorities need to adapt to the digital reality by taking into account not only the development of digital markets themselves, but also the impact of digital technologies on traditional sectors of the economy.
One of the key challenges highlighted by Alexey was the rise of market concentration and the emergence of new forms of market power. He noted that major technology companies are strengthening their positions not only through traditional mergers and acquisitions, but also through complex partnership arrangements, partnership arrangements, platform-based business models, and digital ecosystems. As an example, he referred to the cooperation between Microsoft and OpenAI, which, despite not taking the form of a formal merger, has raised questions among competition authorities in various jurisdictions.
In the photo (from right to left): Alexey Ivanov, Halee Kim, UNCTAD secretariat © HSE University
Ivanov also emphasized that digital concentration extends beyond purely online markets and increasingly affects traditional sectors, including agriculture and food markets. Large market players use digital platforms to expand their influence, raise barriers to entry, and reinforce existing market positions. Such developments are difficult to assess within conventional legal categories such as cartels, mergers, or other forms of anticompetitive conduct, as they represent new and evolving phenomena.
Alexey believes that merger control and the oversight of market concentration should become one of the key areas of joint work within BRICS and UNCTAD, as this field offers significant potential for building trust and developing common cooperation mechanisms.
According to Ivanov, AI holds enormous potential for improving the effectiveness of competition authorities and narrowing the technological gap between regulators and businesses. As one of the promising solutions, he proposed developing AI-based tools for international cooperation, such as a “merger radar” designed to analyse global transactions. In his view, UNCTAD could serve as a platform for advancing such solutions, particularly in support of developing countries and smaller competition authorities.
“The merger radar could become a tool for deeper analysis of global markets and for developing predictive models to better understand their future evolution. At the BRICS Competition Centre, we are exploring the opportunities and limitations of using artificial intelligence to strengthen cooperation between competition authorities. Even the challenges primarily related to the confidentiality of information that authorities would need to provide to such AI agents and models can be addressed, as AI systems mainly deal with aggregated data. Such data can be fed to AI agents without breaching the confidentiality clauses.”
Mr. Nuno Cunha Rodrigues, President, Competition Authority, Portugal, agreed that AI is becoming not only an object of antitrust regulation but also an important tool for enforcement. In recent years, developing in-house technological capabilities and digital tools has become one of the priorities of the Portuguese competition authority.
“Digital markets require digital authorities, and this has been a priority for the Portuguese AdC in recent years, both through investment in digital tools and the development of expert capabilities. For instance, just last year, with the support of one of our recent IT tools, which we call Detect IT, we conducted nine investigations into gun-jumping cases.”
Mr. Joel Omari, Director, Competition and Consumer Protection, Competition Authority of Kenya, noted that traditional regulatory tools are no longer sufficient to address challenges arising in the new environment. Kenya is therefore working to update its legislation to reflect the specific characteristics of digital markets.
“National solutions are no longer sufficient today. The digital economy is inherently cross-border, and digital platforms operate across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. (…) Stronger regional and continental cooperation is essential to ensuring consistent enforcement, preventing market fragmentation, and accelerating the development of a coherent and effective regulatory framework.”
Ms. Halee Kim, Director, Litigation Division, Korea Fair Trade Commission, presented an overview of the main directions of the Republic of Korea’s current competition policy approach toward digital platforms. The Korean competition authority is expanding its economic and data analysis capabilities and has recently conducted an experimental study to assess the impact of digital platforms’ self-preferencing practices on consumer behaviour.
“The study analyzed the casual effect of self-preferencing on consumer choice distortion as well as the effectiveness of information-based remedies designed to prevent such distortions.”
The speaker also presented an overview of two major digital market cases handled by the KFTC — the case concerning YouTube and the Gmarket-AliExpress merger.
The session also brought together representatives from the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, China, and international organizations.
The Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Law and Policy meets annually to discuss ways of improving worldwide cooperation on competition policy implementation and enhancing convergence through dialogue. The Group serves as a forum for intergovernmental consultations based on the United Nations Set of Principles on Competition.
