Trained lawyer, wannabe economist. Most of my scholarship predates AI. Prof @EUI_EU & co-founder DCI @fordynamism. Member of Rhine Group 🔗 Rhinegroup.eu
Florence, Tuscany
Based in Italy
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1/6 Are merger efficiencies just "make-believe"? The EU draft merger guidelines debate has revived hardline skepticism in some corners.
The convo uses 4-3 telecom deals as bogeyman cases.
Real-world cases however tell a different story. A🧵
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1/ The big news of the week: the official launch of the Rhine Group by Mario Draghi, @patrickc, and @lugaricano. I’m honored to join as one of the few lawyers in this economics heavy group. Thread on why this initiative is different - and why it matters.
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Quick thought on law school in the AI age. It is not about teaching contents. It’s about building and training cognitive muscle.
I spent 5 days reading 2 Coase papers 📝.
That mental sweat allowed me to cross my confidence threshold 1/n
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When the Italian 🇮🇹 competition agency will be done toying with the issue of AI distribution on digital platforms, it can fix robocall harassment 👇, cab cartels 🚕, or the summer Bagno ripoff 🏖️
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My @FinancialTimes letter: Europe just issued a good blueprint of merger rules oriented towards innovation and competitiveness. Here’s how to approach the next steps 1/n
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No one has better debunked virtue signalling than Romain Gary.
Independent and brave to the core. Bravo.
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Judge Mehta enforced Section 2 against Google.
He also warned👇that antitrust overreaches if it bars GenAI firms from using their own platforms to distribute models.
US antitrust > EU DMA
The EU tells Google not to integrate AI into Search. It tells Meta not to integrate AI into WhatsApp.
The message to Web-2.0 incumbents: compete in AI—just not too effectively.
My new piece on why Brussels' approach to AI competition doesn't add up:
truthonthemarket.com/2026/04…
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The legal threat of national merger review over *any* deal hurts innovation. The @EU_Commission must get rid of this as a matter of urgency.
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Merger agencies (including the European Commission) are looking for ways to credit innovation benefits in merger control.
The challenge is operational:
How do you assess innovation potential without sacrificing legal administrability or economic rigor?
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Extortion by regulation playbook👇
Stage 1: open Sherman Act Section 2 investigation against @netflix in parallel to standard merger review
Stage 2: drop case in exchange for a deal that increases Trump’s economic wealth or political clout.
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Join us for the launch of The Constitution of Innovation, with @lugaricano & Bengt Holmström.
We will discuss the EU's innovation gap w/ MEP @DarioNardella, @Fatassinari and other friends
📅6 Feb, 5 pm CET
📡 Buontalenti and online
Register at eui.eu/events?id=584312
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How did we get there?
The @EU_Commission stopped enforcing single market law because it must play nice to Member States to pass legislation.
And businesses have 0 incentives to litigate before foreign courts to obtain removal of obstacles to commerce
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🧵In a recent piece, the @FT editors highlighted our “Constitution of Innovation” proposal to establish Federal EU Commercial Courts.
What is this about?
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J’ai relu Jean Monnet.
Comme lui, je ne vois ni solution dans le neutralisme, ni espoir dans l’incrementalisme.
Un choc est nécessaire qui passe par la mise en commun, ouverte à tous mais pas nécessairement à 27, des capacités technologiques et militaires européennes.
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1. The @FinancialTimes just highlighted how Prosus’ acquisition of @JustEatTakeaway, conditioned on divestiture, cuts against the @DraghiReport’s warnings: EU merger policy is raising indirect barriers to the very tech consolidation Europe needs.
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If tech firms believe this is the way to go, let me be clear. This will achieve nothing except cement European’s support for the DMA. Every tech firm with operations in Europe should condemn this appalling and useless threat on its citizens.
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Mario says that only 0.3% (or 1.4%) of mergers face remedies. Merger intervention is de minimis, so let's not get too hyped.
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As Lew Zaretzki noted on @LinkedIn , Amazon’s interest was likely not vacuum cleaners per se, but iRobot’s internal capabilities.
Think robotics, data, and process know-how.
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Tommaso Valletti, former Chief Economist of DG COMP, has a more conservative take: "read the decision"
This was merger control as usual.
iRobot was fledging.
Amazon had a foreclosure story in verticals.
Prohibition followed existing practice.
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The news that iRobot has filed for bankruptcy and will be acquired by its Chinese supplier is a dark day for competition policy 1/N
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FIFA, UEFA, and other sports leagues are cartels tolerated by law on narrow grounds. #Cartels #FIFA #Antitrust 1/n
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Kicking off our @fordynamism conference in 🤩 Paris on merger policy and innovation w/ Prof David Bosco (Aix Marseille) and our Keynote Prof Richard Gilbert @UCBerkeley 1/n
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The @FT picks the ‘constitution of innovation’ for the 3rd time.
The message about Europe’s mission creep is starting to stick 1/n
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Tacit collusion exists.
We experienced it today at the @eui_clwg where I gave my paper on Monopoly Maintenance Law: Underdeveloped and Misdirected papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
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The @superwuster oped on @FTC v @Meta misses an important point.
Extraordinary profits are only a "textbook signal of monopoly power" if obtained through a restriction of output.
The case lacked evidence that output had been restricted. Game over for @FTC.
Dura lex, sed lex
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In Florence @EUI_EU for our 1st
Law & Economics class, with @ngiocoli @AlainMarci85258, @SimonDeakin and my good colleague Prof Josephine Van Zeben.
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Once again commercially driven interoperability outcompetes regulatory driven interoperability 1/2
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Wait a minute. The @FTC lost its case against @Meta because it had gerrymandered an implausible market definition w/o @tiktok_us. Who would have thought?
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Excellent coverage (in French) of the Constitution of Innovation at hubfinance.com/actualites/co… cc the other Tenor @lugaricano
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The "Constitution of Innovation" caught attention of the great @martinwolf_ in the @FT. Not late to join the movement.
Decline is a choice, not a fate.
Today, with @LuisGaricano (@LSEnews) and Bengt Holmström (@MIT), we launch The Constitution of Innovation - a manifesto for a new European renaissance.
We make 6 concrete proposals.
Read them at constitutionofinnovation.eu/
#Europe #Innovation 1/6
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The moment is now. Europe stands at a crossroads:
💊 Blue pill: Path dependency, decline, and irrelevance.
💊 Red pill: Rebirth, dynamism, and a new industrial revolution
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These myths are holding us back.
Europe must confront trade-offs, face empirical reality, and make the hard choice: prosperity over stagnation
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Our message is simple: Less, Better.
Europe doesn’t need more regulation, more bureaucracy, or more mission creep. It needs to focus on what made it great: economic dynamism, open markets, and a culture that rewards innovation
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Tonight the great @lugaricano gives the keynote at the Brussels Study Center graduation ceremony 🧑🎓🍾🔥.
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My latest paper explains why the US v Google case identified monopoly power on the wrong side of the bargaining table. Comments welcome 🙏
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
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Always a big honor to comment on remarks from the August Mario Siragusa @ClearyGottlieb. Tx to my friend @OrestePollicino for the kind invitation @Unibocconi.
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With my 2 friends @lugaricano and @s_yoncourtin + teams. We’re discussing @RenewEurope on what to do to deliver the prosperity vision of the Draghi report.
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Good day for Google which avoids a breakup in the US and a nasty fine in the EU.
Note that w/o the possibility to buy “out of the box preloading of Google search” there’s no point giving a penny to Apple.
So bad day for Apple I would say.
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Wrong economics in Judge Mehta's US v Google opinion. The incentive to restrict output stems from the falling demand curve, not from the supply one.
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Interesting observation: according to Judge Mehta opinion in US v Google (2024), the tied share covered by Google's exclusive contracts is below 25%.
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It’s that time to repost “understanding market power” - a full guide to the tricky but essential economics behind antitrust law. If you teach or study antitrust this fall, feel free to use it. Feedback is very welcome to help me improve the next version papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
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Coup de foudre. Le sublime atteint sous la plume de l’empereur Hadrien. Ne naît-on littérairement qu’après sa première rencontre avec Marguerite Yourcenar?
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This smells like DMA spirit. End users en up bearing more switching costs, here btw app and web browser bc @Spotify does not want to shoulder fees of in app purchases, @Apple does not cut them, and @EU_Commission doesn’t want to regulate prices 🙃.
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Absent access to accurate data, it's impossible to assess the DMA's effectiveness. Redacted numbers in compliance reports - here Art 6(10) access requests - prevent any true accountability exercise or informed discussion of platforms' & the EC's roles in its success or failure.
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