Writing in the Journal of Competition Law & Economics, Analysis Group Managing Principal Antoine Chapsal, Vice President Juliette Caminade, and Jacob Penglase (Assistant Professor in San Diego State University’s Department of Economics) explore the renewed interest in interim measures (IMs) and preliminary injunctions as enforcement tools in antitrust investigations.
To examine the risks of over-enforcement and under-enforcement through the use of IMs, the authors first analyze historical practices and criteria surrounding their use in the United States and Europe. They then present an economic model of the parameters underlying IMs and propose that this model can be used to inform regulators’ and adjudicators’ decisions whether to pursue IMs.
Developing an understanding of the economic effects of IMs on a market is particularly important in investigations into the fast-moving digital sector, where network effects can accelerate both the growth and the demise of competitors. The authors conclude by discussing the characteristics of the digital economy underlying the renewed debate over the use of IMs in antitrust investigations.
Associated People
Antoine Chapsal
Dr. Chapsal is an economist who specializes in empirical and theoretical industrial organization. He has provided economic expertise in a large number of high-profile cases involving mergers, cartels, information exchanges, abuses of dominant positions, regulation, intellectual property matters, and damages quantifications. Recent examples include the Lafarge/Holcim and Fnac/Darty mergers, as well as airfreight, cathode ray tube, and elevator cartel cases. Dr. Chapsal has also assisted various firms in designing optimized pricing strategies and dealing with policy issues. His reports have been presented to the competition authorities of France, Germany, Austria, and South Africa; the European Commission; the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf; and the Court of Appeals, Conseil d’Etat, Conseil constitutionnel, and Tribunal of Commerce of Paris.
Prior to joining Analysis Group, Dr. Chapsal founded MAPP, a Paris- and Brussels-based economic consultancy, which was acquired by KPMG in 2018. Previously, he worked in a US competition economics consultancy. Dr. Chapsal regularly publishes articles on competition economics, on subjects ranging from the econometric analysis of cartels to geographic market delineation and exclusionary strategies. He is an affiliated professor at the Sciences Po Department of Economics and a member of the CESifo academic research network.