Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 10hDraghi says European firms “stay small”, partly because of rules that kick in at a certain size. I mapped all 290 size-based rules in the EU’s 34 digital laws. 20 of those laws use a size term they never define. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/who-is-sma... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 02/10/202612 Sep: an essay asks the AI industry to slow down together. Same day: three rival CEOs agree. 18 Sep: paying users sue. 21 Sep: 22 gov leaders call for common standards. The timeline, and what EU competition law would make of it: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/the-ai-slo...thecompetitionsystem.substack.comThe AI slowdown pact under EU law (Buist v. Anthropic)Four paying users of ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini say the frontier labs illegally fixed the pace of AI in public. Under Article 101 TFEU most of the answer is already written. It runs against the labs on three steps out of four. 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026My reading suggestions for September. What acquirers actually keep when they buy a startup, the causation element in monopolization cases, the economics of recursive self-improvement, why AI detection cannot work, and the university after AI. www.networklawreview.org/september-20....networklawreview.orgReading suggestions – September 2026 - Network Law ReviewI share the papers and articles I enjoyed reading this month. This edition runs from what acquirers actually keep when they buy a startup to the causation element in monopolization cases, a practical ... 001
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 30/09/202624 EU judgments since 1980 weighed a public-interest plea for restricting competition. Since 2006, NOT ONE has saved an agreement between competitors. A pact to slow AI down for safety would be the first. The full record, step by step: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/the-ai-slo...thecompetitionsystem.substack.comThe AI slowdown pact under EU law (Buist v. Anthropic)Four paying users of ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini say the frontier labs illegally fixed the pace of AI in public. Under Article 101 TFEU most of the answer is already written. It runs against the labs on three steps out of four. 011
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Your city, your employer, your CEO’s pay and the next market crash obey one law. Xavier Gabaix spent his career working out why. Then I asked him about the cost of thinking. open.spotify.com/episode/4i5vnkQFdzBObKo1sx6wvf youtu.be/hksXBzu4AnU podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1736309658?i=1000791969279 010
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026“People of the same trade seldom meet together […] the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public.” Smith, 1776. This summer the frontier AI labs met, then asked Washington for an antitrust waiver. Would their pact survive EU law? My take: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/the-ai-slo... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026The Draghi report diagnosed regulatory burden and fragmentation as the reason European firms stay small. The European Innovation Act repeals no Union obligation, reduces none of the 27 enforcement environments, and amends exactly one instrument: the EU trade mark Regulation.thecompetitionsystem.substack.comThe European Innovation Act, testedI coded all 366 rules of the EU's new Innovation Act. It would be the first digital instrument to exclude a firm for who owns it. Four exhibits below. 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026The question for AI is to what extend returns are increasing. A new paper by Tom Cunningham et al. puts a number on it. arxiv.org/abs/2609.15802 This has big implications for law. One does not regulate self-improved systems as others, see papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... 001
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026The three policies Bloom, Van Reenen and Williams rate highest for innovation: R&D tax credits, skilled immigration, trade and competition. The European Innovation Act is silent on the first two and works against the third. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/european-i... 010
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026101 antitrust initiatives on generative AI by antitrust agencies, Feb 2023 to July 2026. ➝ 2023: United States 7, Europe 7. ➝ 2026 (ongoing): Europe 15, United States 1. Every enforcement action in the database since November 2025 is European.networklawreview.orgA Database of Antitrust Initiatives Targeting Generative AI - Network Law ReviewAntitrust agencies are increasingly interested in generative AI. This can be good news. As Sandy Pentland and I wrote last year (here), the competitive dynamics in this space can be supported by a careful antitrust agenda. While the AI Act should be improved if the EU wants innovation to flourish (see this article), enforcement actions […] 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026The fastest change we have ever recorded. Two editions ago, no competition agency reported an internal LLM assistant. This year, 19 of 30 run or build one. From nothing to the most common tool in the field in two years. Fifth report, free. shorturl.at/wmEaW #computationalantitrust 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Article 11 of the European Innovation Act would open R&D procurement only to firms of European origin. In 25 years of EU digital law, no instrument has ever excluded a firm for where it comes from. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/european-i... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Five errors in the Commission’s Booking decision, most of the increment calculation thrown out, nothing annulled. Commission v Tetra Laval, the closest authority in the graph, never named. My audit of the Booking/eTraveli judgment, citation by citation, is out.thecompetitionsystem.substack.comKeeping a market where it is can now be the harm (Booking/eTraveli, T‑1139/23)The General Court says a merger may be blocked for sustaining a weak market, in two sentences no EU court had written before. The fence around them is narrow, and the appeal is open. 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 17/09/2026OUT: The only report on the use of AI in antitrust written by the agencies themselves. 30 of them this year, in their own words: which models they run, what they let them do, what they refuse to do... Here is the fifth edition of the Stanford #ComputationalAntitrust report shorturl.at/wmEaW 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026I promise you, this is stunning. So make sure to join us online (we are full for the in-person capacity) www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/fr/article/l... #computationalantitrustautoritedelaconcurrence.frL’Autorité accueille la conférence de lancement du cinquième rapport annuel de Stanford Computational AntitrustLe 17 septembre 2026, de 16h00 à 17h30, l’Autorité de la concurrence accueille dans ses locaux la conférence de lancement du cinquième rapport annuel du projet Stanford Computational Antitrust, dirigé... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Tomorrow is going to be a very special day. Not so much for the champagne reception, but very much for what we have to unveil. Contributions from about 30 antitrust agencies showing up all the progress they’ve made when it comes to the use of AI and other computational tools. 100
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Booking/eTraveli is the first EU judgment where leveraging runs from a market a firm does not dominate into one it does. The Court called the direction irrelevant, in three paragraphs, no authority. Reverse leveraging is law: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/booking-et... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 14/09/2026A merger can now be blocked for a share gain of a few tenths of a per cent. Not because competition falls, but because it stays where it is. Two paragraphs, no citation, no precedent in ECJ judgments. Booking v Commission, dissected: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/booking-et... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Para 58 of the new Article 102 Guidelines states a rule no judgment states. The likelier the harm, the less evidence needed -> the burden shifts to the firm. The Court has presumptions for two practices. Para 58 cites one and states the rule for all. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/commission... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 10/09/2026For two years I ran an experiment in my law classes: one group banned from ChatGPT, one left alone with it, one trained to use it. Structured training won year one. By year two, the edge had mostly gone. Now fully accessible in OA (Dutch Taverne amendment): papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 09/09/2026I offered to share the findings, walk them through them, and explain what they would mean for Parliament and how they could use them. Guess how many answered? One. I take the silence as data. 😩 Best of luck to the Rhine Group! thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/t/digital-si...thecompetitionsystem.substack.comThe Competition System | Thibault Schrepel | SubstackAn empirical, referenced account of the cases and rules that shape competition in Europe, from Articles 101 and 102 to the DMA, the AI Act, the GDPR, and the Data Act. Every claim traceable to its sou... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Let me tell you something. I sent this empirical mapping of what needs to be fixed to have a proper digital single market to about 10 Members of the European Parliament, all of them involved in the Omnibus or the simplification process. 110
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Read the new Article 102 Guidelines and you will find the Court quoted correctly on every page. Read the judgments and you will find the next paragraph. That paragraph is where the Commission lost Intel, Qualcomm, AdSense and Android. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/commission... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 07/09/2026My op-ed in Les Echos on the Commission’s draft merger guidelines: www.lesechos.fr/idees-debats.... The question I ask is not whether the new rules are good. It is why a text that changes so much is written as if it changed nothing. 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 07/09/2026NEW: I checked the Commission's Article 102 Guidelines against the judgments. Faithful on 1,093 citations of 1,096. Silent on the paragraphs that follow, where the Court says what the Commission must still prove, and where it has lost before. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/commission... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 04/09/2026I like when AI is making data that I’ve had for a very long time. I find it useful. I’ve ranked over 2,000 movies on IMDb. Giving all the data to Claude, I was able to spot new movies that are missing to my watch list. How exciting is that? 100
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 04/09/2026The fastest-spreading clause in EU digital law conscripts a foreigner’s representative. 1 act had it in 2016. 12 do now. Full audit here: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/where-eu-d... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Of the EU digital acts adopted between 2000 and 2015, none reached a firm with no establishment in the Union. Not one. Of the 19 adopted since 2020, 15 do. Find the full audit here: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/where-eu-d... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 31/08/2026NEW: The draft EU merger guidelines open by saying they are based on the case law of the Union Courts and the Commission’s decisional practice. Frédéric Jenny and I tested that sentence against all 8,450+ published merger decisions + all ECJ competition cases. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 31/08/2026The Brussels effect is usually established from outcomes ➝ the foreign firms that end up following EU rules without being required to do so. I went to the texts instead and coded every scope provision of the 34 EU digital acts, the 273 rules that decide whether the rulebook applies to you at all.thecompetitionsystem.substack.comWhere EU digital law stops273 scope rules across 34 acts. As a result, twenty of these acts reach firms with no establishment in the Union, and the fastest-growing clause conscripts a foreigner’s representative. 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 29/08/2026Do yourself a favor, watch this. It’s UTMB (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, 100 miles), live, and it’s extraordinary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1Xw....youtube.com 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 28/08/20262000 to 2015: the EU set no sanction prices in its digital rulebook and imposed none itself. 2020 to 2025: it sets 52% and imposes 27%. The sanctioning power is federalizing, generation by generation. No treaty change. No announcement. Just drafting. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/paying-the... 010
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 26/08/2026141 of the 255 penalty provisions in the EU digital rulebook leave the price of infringement to Member States. The obligations are federal. The consequences are not. One rulebook, 27 price lists. Call it a single market... thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/paying-the... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 24/08/2026NEW: The largest category of sanctions in the EU digital rulebook is not a fine. 1/3 of its 255 penalty provisions revoke capabilities, the authorization, the service, the managers. A fine has a ceiling. Losing the right to operate does not. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/paying-the... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 20/08/2026A law adopted between 2000 and 2015 called for 7 outside texts on average to complete the legislation. Between 2016 and 2019, 11. Since 2020, 20. Each generation ships less assembled than the last. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/the-eu-rul... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 17/08/2026I went through 34 EU digital laws (AI Act, DMA, DSA, MiCA, GDPR…) and counted every time the text says the actual rule will be written later, in a separate text. It happens 517 times: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/the-eu-rul... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 14/08/2026The eCommerce Directive of 2000 named 9 institutional categories. The GDPR lifted the ceiling to 27. The EHDS of 2025 names 61. Institutional complexity rises with every legislative generation. Convergence would show the opposite slope. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/one-digita... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 13/08/2026440 provisions coordinate authority across the EU digital rulebook. Only 13% actually bind anyone. The one-stop-shop, the mechanism most associated with the single market promise, appears 11 times in 34 instruments... thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/one-digita... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 12/08/2026A firm under the GDPR faces many copies of one supervisor. A firm deploying one AI system can face 15 different types of supervisor whose competences meet inside a single product. The AI Act is the most crowded instrument of the EU digital rulebook. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/one-digita... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 11/08/2026101 consummated mergers, and merger simulations overpredict price increases in about 70% of them, by 3.8% for the merging parties. YET, they still screen harmful mergers better than HHI thresholds or GUPPI. Wrong magnitudes, right ranking. 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 11/08/2026I classified all 1,068 institutional assignments in the EU digital rulebook. Information exchange: 359. Advisory: 262. Coordination: 233. Sanctioning: 95. The soft functions outnumber the hard ones 2.6 to 1. thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/one-digita... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 06/08/2026A (digital) single market assumes firms can find out which rules govern them at reasonable cost. In the EU digital rulebook, almost no definition can be read where it stands: it points elsewhere, or moves when another act is repealed. That tracing cost is a tax on competitiveness.open.substack.comTesting the incoherence thesis: definitions in EU digital law, 2000-20251,400 definitions across 34 regulations. I audited the consistency of them all. 120
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 05/08/2026Over 2,000 compute hours later, they find algorithmic collusion typically breaks. HOWEVER: pair a 32B model with a 14B one and the big model leads, the small one follows, and prices stay 21% above competitive. Capability gaps stabilise cartels rather than disrupt them. 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 04/08/2026Really useful: ai-legal-education.perl.chatgpt.site Next step as I see it: document empirically all of those approaches. Gather the results... and adapt.ai-legal-education.perl.chatgpt.siteAI in Legal Education | Law School Policy ArchiveCompare how law schools are adapting teaching, assessment, curriculum, and student-use policies in response to AI. 010
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 04/08/2026Andrew Perlman (Dean Suffolk Law) has built an archive comparing how 128 US law schools handle AI in coursework. Berkeley bans it by default. Chicago teaches 1L courses device-free while building supervised use into legal writing. Texas dropped take-home exams, etc... 122
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 03/08/2026I analyzed the definitions provisions of all 34 EU digital instruments and recorded ~1,400 defined terms. The famous complaint that the rulebook is incoherent? Mostly wrong. This does not mean EU regulation is easy to navigate... My findings: thecompetitionsystem.substack.com/p/definition... 000
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Force a platform to share its data with rivals on equal terms and you may end up with less data for everyone. Hanming Fang and Soo Jin Kim show that weak data neutrality is bypassed through pricing, and strong data neutrality cuts the platform's incentive to refine data in the first place. Equal acc 010
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 31/07/2026... whereas I think we could be using it to model a lot of the complexity that's out there, and the heterogeneity.” (Peter Howitt, Nobel laureate, 2025). ➝ open.spotify.com/episode/54ct... ➝ podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/s... ➝ youtu.be/to0g_F4Tke4?...open.spotify.comPeter Howitt on Creative Destruction in the Age of AIScaling Theory · Episode 010
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 31/07/2026“A lot of macroeconomics really wastes computing power (...) solving for very complex equilibrium behavior of a sort that goes far beyond what you could ever imagine a real human being is doing... 100
Thibault Schrepel @profschrepel.bsky.social · 31/07/2026My July reading suggestions are out. Merger simulations tested at scale, AI agent collusion turning out to be more fragile than feared, backdoors in neural networks that no statistical test can catch, user innovation, and why the AI labs keep hiring philosophers. networklawreview.org/july-2026/ 031