About Shaping Competition in the Digital Age (SCiDA)
Welcome to the Shaping Competition in the Digital Age (SCiDA) podcast, where we explore the evolving landscape of digital competition regulation in Europe and beyond.
Hosted by Dr Anush Ganesh (Leeds University), Dr Kena Zheng (HHU Düsseldorf) and Dr Jasper van den Boom (Leiden University) and Dr Ece Ban (Uni of Exeter).
This podcast brings you in-depth conversations with leading academics, policymakers, and practitioners about the challenges and opportunities in regulating Big Tech.
See our episodes from 2024 here- https://open.spotify.com/show/7m4Jiollzt4GmGtUF7bYKZ?si=e649beaf35db4147
Episode 42- Empirical Analysis of Digital Market Case References - Joanna Mazur
In this episode, Anush Ganesh and Ece Ban are joined by Dr Joanna Mazur, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw and analyst at the Centre of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies and DELab UW.
Joanna shares her empirical research on how the European Commission gathers and relies on expert knowledge in competition cases involving digital markets, drawing on nearly 2,900 references across 17 decisions concerning Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple and Microsoft.
We discuss the gaps in Regulation 1/2003 and the Merger Regulation on who counts as a source of expertise, the dominance of market participants’ replies to requests for information and what that means for smaller players, and the quiet influence of commercial providers such as Gartner, IDC and Statista on how markets are framed.
Joanna also reflects on the Onavo data in Facebook/WhatsApp as a case study in informational asymmetry, the striking absence of academic scholarship from the decisions, and the idea that the Commission relies on borrowed expertise when it comes to how digital markets actually work.
We ask Joanna would make to how the Commission gathers and discloses its sources. She also shares some pieces of advice for future scholars wanting to engage in empirical legal analysis.
5 Oct 2026
Episode 41- Early Career Voices in Digital Competition Law - Pol Adroher Bernal, Chloé Djamdji and Emanuela Lecchi
In this episode of the SCiDA podcast, Anush Ganesh and Ece Ban are joined by three early career scholars researching different aspects of digital competition law, from commitment decisions and the interplay between the DMA and Article 102 TFEU to ecosystem mergers.
Pol Adroher Bernal, PhD Candidate in EU Competition Law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, discusses his paper on the unchecked discretion surrounding commitment decisions under Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003 in digital markets. He explains the private enforcement and proportionality gaps that systematic reliance on commitments can create, revisits Alrosa and AG Kokott's middle path, and sets out his proposal for a minimum proportionality requirement calibrated to market dynamism and the risk of irreversible harm.
Chloé Djamdji, PhD Candidate in Competition Law at Université Côte d'Azur, introduces the concept of normative synergy between the Digital Markets Act and Article 102 TFEU. She explores whether the DMA can reach AI players such as OpenAI and Nvidia and presents a hybrid model combining ex ante and ex post approaches, set against the new Article 102 Guidelines and the Meta WhatsApp interim measures.
Emanuela Lecchi, Lecturer in Competition Law and Regulation at the University of Dundee, examines ecosystem mergers through the contrast between de-entrenchment and regulated entrenchment, where regulation such as the DMA becomes a reason to clear a deal and rely on behavioural obligations. She discusses how quantitative tools could strengthen entrenchment analysis in cases like Booking Holdings and reflects on Microsoft/Activision and the CMA's December 2025 remedies guidance.
All three will be presenting their work at the ECR conference at the University of Glasgow on 12 and 13 November 2026.
22 Sept 2026
Episode 40- Unpacking the Commission's Article 102 Guidelines - Simon de Ridder and Ece Ban
In this episode, Anush Ganesh sits with Dr Ece Ban from the University of Exeter and Simon de Ridder from Humboldt University of Berlin to discuss the European Commission's newly adopted Guidelines on exclusionary abuses under Article 102 TFEU. Two years in the making, the final text differs noticeably from the draft consulted on in 2024.
The conversation opens with first impressions before turning to the two-pronged test for exclusionary abuse and whether the Guidelines offer a clearer, more operational definition of competition on the merits. We then look at how the presumptions of exclusionary effects have been recast as varying in strength and scope, and whether the sliding scale of evidence makes the Commission's decisions easier to review on appeal or widens its margin of discretion.
We discuss what exclusive dealing arrangements a dominant supplier could safely sign off on, whether the Commission is inviting the Court to align by-nature abuses with Article 101 object restrictions, and what replaces the as-efficient competitor benchmark in non-pricing cases, alongside the treatment of predatory pricing and margin squeeze.
Finally, we place the Guidelines within the wider modernisation of EU competition policy, reading them alongside the draft Merger Guidelines and the Draghi Report's call for predictability, and ask whether leaving exploitative abuses aside was a missed opportunity.
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