Antitrust & Regulatory Compliance in The 21st Century: New Challenges, New Opportunities and the Role of AI

Antitrust & Regulatory Compliance in The 21st Century: New Challenges, New Opportunities and the Role of AI

Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz

Berkeley Research Group, LLC

Albert Metz

Berkeley Research Group, LLC

Abstract

We have previously made the case that the high penalties for cartels, the expansion of leniency programs, the new incentive provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, and the increased use of screening methods by competition authorities and private litigants would motivate corporations to enhance their antitrust compliance programs. In particular, that corporations would increasingly incorporate screens as part of such programs. We have, indeed, observed a greater focus on antitrust compliance over the last few years, even more so with new regulations on competition in the tech space.

Antitrust compliance was, for a long time, part of a process that had to exist because it was simply required, and it was not characterized by many as a specially exciting and dynamic area. But a combination of recent new demands and challenges from an ever more complex and intense regulatory environment, as well as new powerful technologies and tools, are transforming this area of work into a highly creative and value-added activity which, of course, extends much beyond antitrust compliance to several of the functions of the corporation as a whole.

Just as we have, for some time, been advocating for the use of screens in antitrust compliance, in this article we will advocate for the use of AI in that same context. Both detection and deterrence of anticompetitive conduct could get a major boost with the assistance of these tools, allowing corporations to stay ahead of the game in a cost-efficient way, potentially significantly minimizing the risk of non-compliance and regulatory violations, at a time when the stakes for non-compliance are becoming very high.