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Kevin Coates

@kevincoates.bsky.social
1.1K followers 3.2K following 562 posts

Antitrust / competition law and tech regulation partner @ Covington, ex DG COMP. Brussels and Brighton.

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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is the way.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Less funny if Johnson emerges from the shower.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
More anecdata that the real social media problem isn’t the under 15s it’s the more than 50s.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Phil, sorry but your last comment I really don’t think is accurate. There have been many variations over the years; some worked, some didn’t. All (?) of them taking time and some more successful than others.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
That’s very cool. I think the main constraint on using these things to improve our everyday lives is imagining what’s possible. (Though they can help with that, not by imagining but by researching what other people have been doing.)
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
It probably also needs a change from first past the post. A durable - electoral - majority under FPTP is difficult to imagine.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
This is god’s way of telling you to move beyond the bubble 😂. I’ve actually got a soft spot for the Chandos (upstairs) so I’m not really in a position to throw stones.
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Reposted by Kevin Coates
oandriychuk.bsky.social @oandriychuk.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
The debate surrounding the evolution of goals of competition policy often polarises into two distinct philosophical camps. To explore these competing approaches, Or Brook and I hosted a discussion between Jorge Padilla and Ariel Ezrachi. 🎬 www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA3p...
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
A good win for someone I guess.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
They are or they aren’t. Each is terrifying. (Or would be if she had any chance of becoming Prime Minister.)
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Good strategy though I’d have openly doubled it. (Though that may be blackmail. I’d check that first 😂)
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Yup. I’d guess that examples of their type I errors, like the Shelley example above, might be revealing about their training data.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
I ran a short piece I’d written through three detectors. Chances of it being AI generated were 95%, 43% and 2%. I don’t think the detectors are going to get more reliable over time either.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
A good piece. The European context is different-regulators *tend* not to put up with this and it can be counter-productive. A party once wanted to define the product market on one of my cases as “leisure time activities” which was easy to rebut. www.twentyfirstcenturycompetition.com/2014/09/gild...
twentyfirstcenturycompetition.com
Gilding Refined Gold and Painting the Lily - 21st Century Competition
Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp, To guard a title that was rich before, To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unt...
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
media.tenor.com
a man in a police uniform with the words we hunt the truth written below him
ALT: a man in a police uniform with the words we hunt the truth written below him
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
🎶Happy birthday to ya, happy birthday to ya, happy birthday🎶
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
You haven’t allowed for the Independent Republic of Yorkshire. There’s no way they’d accept being lumped together with Lanks, Mancs and Geordies.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
It is, de facto.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
I guess that Cummings’ blog was part of the training corpus of ChatGPT.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
[Yoda voice]: The lack of self awareness is strong in this one.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
brucespringsteen.net/news/2026/st... As Bono said, there’s only one boss in America.
brucespringsteen.net
Streets Of Minneapolis | Bruce Springsteen
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis,...
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Some in FIFA apparently worried that association with Trump will “tarnish their reputation”. Really hard to know where to start with that.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
It’s hard to think of anyone more likely than Farage to be voted out in round one of the next #traitors.
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Reposted by Kevin Coates
Candida Leone @candidaleone.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
In case someone (v much thinking of certain Competition Law colleagues and a certain Linkedin spat) wants to again explain how EU enforcement against X was totally biased and a form of protectionism.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
For anyone that needs a good news story (which is pretty much all of us).
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Ariel Ezrachi’s Competition Law is a great overview of the field (my area of law). I imagine they’re difficult books to write as being both accurate and accessible is hard, so I’m not surprised that some miss the target.
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Reposted by Kevin Coates
James Felton @jimmfelton.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
I don't really post anymore, but I would like to carry on writing books at some point in the future. Hate to be annoying, but any chance you could retweet so old twitter followers can find me if they want to? Going to delete my twitter, or at least abandon it on lock and let it die a slow death.
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Reposted by Kevin Coates
Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
We're hiring.......
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Fair. Maybe one of the lesser-known Norse deities maybe?
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Stephen’s an admirable guy in many many ways but god-like maybe goes a bit far.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Not disagreeing at all !
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
“There aren’t many of ‘them’ but there are too many of ‘them’ “ is a pretty solid racist position though. Logic and rationality (and honesty) be damned.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
It stands up to rewatching now. It’s just so gloriously warm with a dash of politics. “I’m going to walk out of here a free man. I do impressions you see.” Big Al.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Thanks. I need to think about that distinction some more but it’s a useful point.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Are you making Holmes’s “simplicity on the other [far] side of complexity” point or do you have something else in mind?
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
“Are you speaking to Truong from the percentage?” Really loving Apple Intelligence summaries on my new phone.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 11/10/2025
Iain M Banks would have approved.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
“When I use a word…” Humphrey Dumpty said…
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Well it’s definitely a view.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
Quite. That Starmer is allying with Trump agains the EU is a ridiculous argument. I don’t agree with Starmer’s rhetoric or policies on a lot of things but to say that he’s closer to Trump than he is to, eg, VDL is just not serious.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
People who bleat on about the DMA should keep this in mind 3/3
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
So telecoms regulation recognises that we’re not going to have 50 companies putting wires into every home so we put access requirements in place. Energy is similar. 2/x
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
One of the “meta” rules about competition (and competition policy) is that it’s generally not a good idea to let control over one layer of a system allow control over other layers as well. 1/x
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Reposted by Kevin Coates
Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
Six years ago, almost to the day, Apple removing a similar app from the Hong Kong App Store was seen as such a breach that Tim Cook wrote an all staff email to defend it www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Tim Cook defends Apple's removal of Hong Kong mapping app
Apple chief said in a letter HKmap.live was ‘used maliciously to target’ officers as claim was disputed by protesters on the ground
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
This is a pretty good argument in support of the EU’s DMA which requires alternative app stores.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
48/52. The cursèd ratio.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
He may need to revise his self-description as a “former” criminal quite soon.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
You’re celebrating being a citizen of nowhere surrounded by other citizens of nowhere. Nick Timothy would turn in his grave. (That last part is just wishful thinking.)
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Don’t you know? Maybe go and ask a nice policeman.
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Kevin Coates @kevincoates.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
What have the Normans ever done for us?
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