Publications

La Consob ha pubblicato il Piano delle Attività di Regolazione per il 2023, che è stato predisposto in conformità all’articolo 2 del Regolamento sui procedimenti per l’adozione di atti di regolazione generale della Consob (delibera 19654 del 5 luglio 2016). Inoltre, è stato presentato anche l’aggiornamento del Piano delle Attività di Verifica d’Impatto della Regolamentazione, relativo al biennio 2022-2023.

(ITA) Il contributo suggerisce l’affermarsi di un moderno principio di residualità non limitato ad informare il rapporto tra regolazione e concorrenza, ma che richiede una giustificazione dell’intervento pubblico in termini di effettiva necessità e ragioni specifiche che ne sono alla base, per spingersi ad informare contenuto regolatorio. Le ragioni risultano non solo arricchite rispetto a quelle tradizionali, ma anche disancorate da problemi già concretizzatisi per abbracciare una visione prospettica e anticipatoria. --- (ENG) The paper suggests the rise of a modern principle of residuality, which exceeds the balance between regulation and competition. This principle calls for the justification of regulation in terms of necessity. Problem drivers should be also taken into consideration, as well as the regulatory content. The problem drivers appear to be enriched compared to the traditional ones, whilst also being disentangled from problems that have already materialized so as to embrace a prospective and anticipatory approach.

These two volumes collect twenty five articles and papers published within the “Governance of/through Data” research project financed by the Italian Ministry of Universities. The research project, which was promoted by Roma Tre University, as project lead, and saw the participation of professors and reseachers from Bocconi University in Milan; LUMSA University in Rome; Salento University in Lecce and Turin Polytechnic, cover multiple issues which are here presented in five sections: Algorithms and artificial intelligence; Antitrust, artificial intelligence and data; Big Data; Data governance; Data protection and privacy.

Antitrust law addresses conspiracy, or collaborative conduct, more harshly than it does unilateral conduct. One person acting alone can get away with far more than groups of firms acting by agreement. In most cases that distinction is justified. Creating substantial market power unilaterally is difficult and relatively uncommon, but it can be created in a moment’s time by an agreement among firms. But how do antitrust tribunals determine when conduct is unilateral rather than collaborative? Often the ansawer is obvious, but sometimes it is not. Two statutory provisions were intended to be the umpire of such decisions. A section of the Sherman considered so important that it was re-enacted in the Clayton Act provides that corporations and associations authorized by state law should be treated as “persons,” or single actors. The provisions address the core problems about internal corporate structure, including the single-entity status of holding companies, the legitimacy or not of suits between shareholders or employees and their firm, or the status of professional associations. The fact that the Sherman Act’s corporate personhood provision was re-enacted virtually verbatim in the Clayton Act is significant, because the intervening quarter century had witnessed a fierce debate over the power and reach of the business corporation. The personhood provisions fall short, however, because they completely ignore most of the interesting cases where conspiratorial capacity is in issue. They have nothing to contribute to situations where the precise boundaries of the corporation become ambiguous. Nor do they provide a solution to the problem of how to address labor disputes between an employer and its own employees. Further, and inadvertently, the statutes have encouraged certain types of industry structures that are not mandated by good competition policy, including the tendency to merge in order to avoid harsh rules about collusion, and the tendency to integrate vertically by ownership even when contractual integration might be superior.

In this report, the National Board of Trade Sweden highlights the challenges that digital innovation creates for technical regulation. The report questions whether artificial intelligence and cyber vulnerabilities are changing the way industrial goods, such as some smartphones, medical devices, and vehicles with embedded digital technologies, are regulated.