Could you tell us about your research at the EUI?
My research focuses on the trade-offs that arise when enforcing competition law in digital markets. While value conflicts have always been featured in competition law, the debate around digital platforms sparks new dimensions. The promotion and protection of competition appears to frustrate at times the protection of values that are seen as typically 'digital'. The most prominent examples are privacy and cybersecurity, which are the two areas I focus on in my research.
On both sides of the Atlantic, the major digital platforms (i.e. Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft) have started putting forward privacy- and cybersecurity-based arguments to justify the conduct for which they are under competition law scrutiny. I take these legal claims as the starting point of my research, asking how competition decision makers could (and should) address such claims. While the focus of my research is on EU competition law, I also make a comparative excursion into US antitrust law. The US is a key comparator in my work since the very same platform practices investigated in the EU are also subject to antitrust scrutiny in the US.
Please tell us about your fieldwork experience.
I carried out much of the comparative part of my research during a stay in Washington, DC from mid-February to mid-April 2024. I was in DC as this year’s International Scholar-in-Residence of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Antitrust Law Section. The generous funding provided by the ABA allowed me to spend time at the heart of (federal) US antitrust decision making and gain a better understanding of how the questions I examine in my research are approached in the US. As part of my stay, I was also a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Law School.
The purpose of the ABA’s International Scholars in Residence Programme is to immerse participants in DC’s (very large) antitrust community and to connect with its members. A typical day in DC looked as follows. I would spend half of my time connecting and meeting with the US experts on my research topic. I was able to talk directly with the enforcers, policymakers, practitioners, and scholars at the forefront of shaping antitrust enforcement in digital markets. The other half of my day would be dedicated to independent research on US antitrust law, which I typically carried out from the campus of Georgetown University’s Law School.
What are the main lessons learnt from this experience and what was memorable?
Firstly, I gained concrete insights into how the questions I study are approached under US antitrust law. Secondly, I also have acquired a much better grasp of how the EU approach is distinctly European. For example, I was aware that in the EU privacy is seen as a standalone fundamental right to a much larger degree than in the US, but I finally realised how much this shapes the conversation and frames the debate only once I was part of those conversations and debates. I did not fully realise this aspect before my stay in DC, but I now believe that (provided you have time and funding) doing research in a different jurisdiction can really help you to see what is unique about your own jurisdiction – even if your research project is not predominantly a comparative project.
DC has an incredibly vibrant antitrust community, so I had no shortage of relevant events to attend. One event is particularly worth highlighting. As I was in DC via the ABA Antitrust Law Section, I had the opportunity to attend their ‘Spring Meeting’, the largest annual gathering of antitrust, consumer protection, and data privacy professionals. The sheer size of the conference was mind-blowing, and the atmosphere was very different from what I am used to in Europe. Being part of this huge event was a unique learning moment, but I must admit that I needed a very long nap at the end of the conference to recover!
How has being a researcher at the EUI facilitated your experience of fieldwork?
The EUI is generally very supportive of researchers who want to carry out part of their research outside of Florence. Both the academic and administrative staff at the EUI do their best to accommodate your plans for a research stay or fieldwork. Planning such a research mission can be very overwhelming at times, but the support from the EUI’s community eases the entire process. While in my case the ABA funded the bulk of my research stay and took care of most organisational issues, the EUI provided me with excellent additional administrative support and helped me to fill some of the remaining funding gaps.
I owe a special thanks to my supervisor at the EUI, Professor Nicolas Petit, for assisting me in my application to the International Scholars in Residence Programme in DC. Professor Petit’s familiarity with US antitrust law and the US antitrust community was very helpful, which meant I had a much easier time when it came to doing research and making connections in DC.
What do you believe is the added value of being a PhD researcher at the EUI?
The PhD can be a very long and lonely journey at times, but the EUI’s strong focus on doctoral studies results in a much larger number of PhD researchers at the EUI than you would find in other institutions. This results in a close-knit community of researchers that help each other face the struggles of the PhD journey. A proof of this wonderful (professional and social) network is the fact that I met with several current and past EUI researchers while in the US.
Another key benefit of being a researcher at an institute focused on doctoral research is that the academic and administrative support offered by the EUI is perfectly aligned with the needs of PhD researchers. The EUI staff’s familiarity with facilitating research stays and fieldwork is but one example of this precious support offered to EUI researchers.
Natalia Moreno Belloso is a researcher at the EUI Department of Law, where her PhD thesis will be on 'Value Conflicts in Competition Law: When Competition Clashes with Privacy and Cybersecurity'. Natalia is a member of the Interdisciplinary Research Cluster on ‘Digital transformations and society’.