Reflections on CREATe Voices in the 20th ASCOLA Annual Conference

Blog post by Yingying Zhu, Lecturer at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and former PhD Candidate at CREATe.

The 20th ASCOLA (Academic Society for Competition Law) Annual Conference took place from 26 to 28 June 2025 at Loyola University Chicago. As in previous years, ASCOLA 2025 was the place to reconnect with the ASCOLA family from around the world. Beyond the in-depth and high-quality discussions of scholarship, there were dazzling socials each evening after the panels: a dinner cruise on Lake Michigan, the Pop Culture & Antitrust panel, the Hot Topics panel, the first ever ASCOLA 5K Race for Competition, and plenty of coffee-fuelled academic debates after each panel. It was wonderful to engage in conversations on competition law amid exciting panels, jazz, and a boat cruise. We appreciate the organisers (particularly Spencer Weber Waller and his team) for the extraordinary job they did in bringing us all together and making the annual conference such a success.

While the conference featured a range of relaxed social events and fostered a welcoming atmosphere among the global competition law family, the academic discussions remained rigorous throughout. This seriousness was evident at every stage—from the careful selection of papers, to the thorough preparation of chairs and presenters, to the insightful comments delivered by each discussant. ASCOLA 2025 received over 200 submissions, each of which was evaluated by at least two experienced reviewers through a double-blind peer review process. Special thanks go to the reviewers for their time and dedication. During the conference, competition scholars engaged in academic exchange, with 22 parallel sessions, 68 presentations, and 3 plenary panels. We were exposed to new research questions being posed, innovative methodologies being adopted, and exciting findings being shared. CREATe was also well-represented at the conference, with the participation of Magali Eben, Konstantinos Stylianou, and Yingying Zhu.

Magali Eben’s presence was felt in every corner of ASCOLA 2025. She was active throughout the conference in various roles—chairing the Digital & AI parallel session, contributing thought-provoking insights (and even performing a musical theater) during the Pop Culture & Antitrust plenary panel, and fulfilling her responsibilities as a member of the ASCOLA Executive Committee at the General Assembly. Magali chaired a particularly cutting-edge session on Digital & AI, where Klaus Wiedemann and Quentin B. Schäfer presented their excellent paper, “Article 5(2) DMA and the Pay-or Consent Business Model at the Intersection of Public and Private Autonomy”; Jan Blockx delivered a brilliant talk on “Algorithmic Collusion and Explainable AI”; and Christian Bergqvist and Miroslava Marinova presented their forward-looking work, “Unlocking Manufacturer Utopia: AI’s Role in Perfect Price Discrimination”.

Photo by Yingying Zhu

.

During the Pop Culture & Antitrust plenary session, Magali Eben based her comments on her teaching experience at the University of Glasgow, where she teaches competition law at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She began by discussing how pop culture can be creatively incorporated into competition law teaching. Her students respond with great enthusiasm—often far more than one might expect—because Magali’s wide-ranging research interests enable her to expose students to competition law issues they might otherwise overlook. Her work spans music, video games, newspapers, and literature—an approach deeply influenced by CREATe’s interdisciplinary environment, where scholars engage with diverse legal fields, including competition law.

For example, she introduces discussions on competition law issues in the digital lending of books. Also, she conducted a market investigation related to video games. While many games were commonly known among the group, five students highlighted a lesser-known game developed by a small studio as being especially creative and original. Magali used this industry-specific conversation as a springboard to engage students in broader competition law debates—such as how we define innovation. Later in the session, during the discussion on communicating in scholarship, Magali proposed a “middle strategy”: publish serious, peer-reviewed articles in traditional law journals, while also writing fun articles and using more accessible platforms—such as podcasts, blog posts, or YouTube videos—to explore pop culture intersections and engage wider audiences. In the final segment, focused on the academic role in public communication through pop culture, Magali joined Stephen Calkins and Spencer Weber Waller in performing a musical theatre.

Konstantinos presented “Goals of Competition Law and Policy from the People Who Shape It”. He began by introducing the empirical work he conducted with Marios Iacovides on exploring the goals of competition law, where they performed a textual statistical analysis of approximately 4,000 documents—including decisions of the Court of Justice and the General Court, opinions of the Advocates General, speeches by Commissioners. One of their flagship insights was that, at least in the EU, competition law has historically pursued—and continues to pursue—multiple different goals. Apart from sustainability, they found little support in decision-making practice for the so-called non-conventional goals of competition law: no support for labour rights or privacy, and fairness appeared only at a relatively low frequency. Konstantinos then invited comments on whether they should complete the picture by asking the people who actually apply and enforce competition law (e.g. judges, Advocates General, and practitioners) what they believe the goals are—and what those goals mean to them. If so, which goals shall they emphasise?

I myself (Yingying Zhu) presented “Addressing Underenforcement in Chinese Data-Related Merger Review: the Role of Evidentiary Rules Clarification”. I began by examining the legislative comparability between China and the EU in data-related merger review, and the notable silence in Chinese enforcement. As I observed, there has been a clear international shift—both legislatively and in enforcement practice—toward a preventive paradigm in digital markets. In China, leading digital companies have engaged in a wide range of merger activities. Yet many of these transactions have either not been notified when arguably they should have been, or have been cleared without any discussion of whether, or how, data-related concerns were taken into account. I proposed that clarifying the burden of proof and the standard of proof in data-related merger review decisions may serve as an intermediary solution to the issue of underenforcement.

Special thanks go to John Newman for thoughtfully organising and summarising the workshop—both before and after the event—as well as for his comments from the enforcer’s perspective. His point about how resource allocation decisions might be driving underenforcement was particularly insightful. Heartfelt thanks also to Sandra Marco Colino for once again taking the time to read my draft. Her two comments were especially helpful: first, to consider whether the lack of enforcement in digital economy cases may reflect a deliberate policy choice; and second, to reflect on whether the EU itself may be shifting toward incorporating non-competition considerations, such as industrial policy. Many thanks as well to Jasper Sluijs for his thought-provoking observations on jurisdictional thresholds, and to Maciej Bernatt for his insightful suggestion to integrate an institutional perspective into the analysis—an idea that was particularly valuable.

The ASCOLA Annual Conference is always a pleasure to attend and consistently offers a wealth of cutting-edge perspectives on competition law. Next year, from 1 to 4 July 2026, we will continue our international dialogue in London. And since it’s much closer to Glasgow this time, the CREATe competition law people have no excuse not to join. See you at ASCOLA 2026!