Welcome to the Academic Society for Competition Law – an association composed of scholars committed, in their scholarship, to the development of competition law, policy and the economics of competition worldwide.
ASCOLA unites several hundred researchers and scholars from all continents who focus on antitrust law, economics and policy. Members of ASCOLA usually meet once a year for a big annual conference with in-depth discussions of scholarship. ASCOLA regional chapters organise the exchange throughout the year in several jurisdictions. Here you may find more information about ASCOLA events. Please also consult our News section for most recent information.
In the Resources section, you can find our collection of teaching materials, ASCOLA books and the Declaration of Ethics to which we subscribe.
On this website we also inform you on what characterises ASCOLA, how it is organised, its history and how you can join. Members from around the world – from junior academics starting their careers to renowned legends of antitrust scholarship – enjoy the spirit of ASCOLA as a market of ideas – and a place where projects are developed and friendships forged.
ASCOLA members Kay Jebelli and Friso Bostoen have a podcast on competition matters that is definitely worth listening to: “Monopoly Attack”, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your daily dose. A good start could be the report on the ASCOLA Conference 2022 in Porto that Kay & Friso put together. You can …
On daytime, Philip Marsden is a serious competition law expert, working at the Collège d’Europe in Bruges. But at nighttime, he can turn into a most entertaining rap star, the uncrowned king of the competition concert hall. At the 17th ASCOLA Conference in Porto, he made an appearance as Capt. Felipe during an evening boat …
Francesco Ducci is the winner of the 2022 Best Junior Paper Award of ASCOLA, the Academic Society for Competition Law. Francesco is a scholar at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. The jury decided that his paper on “Randomized Access to Digital Bottlenecks” stands out. The jury wrote: “The piece is highly insightful, bringing new …
Ascola is organized as a democratic association involving a General Assembly and a Board – including a Chair. The Assembly convenes each year. It elects the Board, including the Chair, of the Association. The organization is described in a Charter.
The Chair The chair is currently Michal Gal – a professor at the University of Haifa, Israel.
The Board The Board is composed of members elected by the members of the association. The composition partly reflects the geographic coverage of the association. Elections are organized on a regular basis. For these elections members can suggest applications.
Composition of the Board Michal Gal (Israel), Chair Rupprecht Podszun (Germany), Vice Chair Peter Picht (Switzerland), Treasurer
Peter Picht, Michal Gal, Rupprecht Podszun – the Executive Board of ASCOLA at Aix in 2019.
Thomas Cheng (Hong Kong) Fabiana Di Porto (Italy) Josef Drexl (Germany) Valeria Falce (Italy) Harry First (US) Wolfgang Kerber (Germany) Heike Schweitzer (Germany) Ioannis Lianos (Greece) Bjorn Lundqvist (Sweden) Francisco Marcos (Spain) Giorgio Monti (Netherlands) Paul Nihoul (Belgium) Danny Sokol (USA) Maurice Stucke (USA)
If you wish to join ASCOLA, please click here. If you wish to get in touch with the Executive Board, please write an e-mail to team [at] ascola.org or address the board members individually.
Regional Chairs: Thomas Cheng & Masako Wakui – Asia (except India) Vikas Kathuria – India Spencer Weber Waller – USA Vicente Bagnoli & Juliana Oliveira Domingues – Brazil Juan David Gutiérrez – Latin America (except Brazil) Mor Bakhoum – Africa Bjorn Lundqvist – Nordics Maciej Bernatt – Central Europe (focus Poland) Jasminka Pecotic Kaufman & Alexandr Svetlicinii – South East Europe (focus Balkans) Victoria Daskalova – Eastern Europe (focus Bulgaria) Emanuela Arezzo – Italy Magali Eben & Or Brook – United Kingdom Claudio Lombardi & Alexei Ivanov – Eurasia and Central Asia David Bosco – France Wendy Ng – Australia and NZ Pieter van Cleyenbreugel – Benelux Zeynep Ayata & Marios Iacovides – Eastern Mediterranean
If you wish to get in touch with the regional chapters of ASCOLA please address these scholars and try to follow the ongoing activities.
The General Assembly The General Assembly consists of all members of the association. All members have a similar vote. No difference is made depending on origin of members, or the fee paid by them. As a reminder, fees are discounted for younger academics and for academics coming from lower-income regions. The General Assembly takes place in the course of annual conferences.
Are you interested in joining too? Get more information here.
Events
17th ASCOLA Conference 2022
The Academic Society for Competition Law held its 17th Annual Conference in Porto, Portugal, from 30 June 2022 to 2 July 2022. The organisation was led by Sofia Pais, professor at Católica University in Porto, and her team and the Board of ASCOLA. 100 papers, picked on a peer review basis from a much larger number of submissions, were presented in 29 panels! U.S. Judge Diane Wood gave a keynote speech, introduced by Margarida Matos Rosa, the head of the Portuguese competition agency. Extra-panels dealt with mentoring and with the question “how not to present a paper”. Francesco Ducci won the Best Junior Paper Award. More than 130 participants from around the world took part in the perfectly organised event and enjoyed the intense discussions and personal meetings after years of video conferencing. Again, ASCOLA proved to be THE place to showcase your work on competition law & policy!
The 16th annual event of Ascola, #ASCOLA2021, was not held in Porto (Portugal) as had originally planned. Instead, the event was hosted virtually via Zoom from 1-3 July 2021. Please find the Conference Website with all relevant information here. The organisation of the digital event lied with the ASCOLA Executive Board Michal Gal, Rupprecht Podszun and Peter Picht (plus their respective teams). The Porto team has provided valuable support, in particular in connection with selecting papers. Due to the record number of submissions we undertook a double blind peer review process of papers. Keynote speaker of the conference was Carl Shapiro. Side events included an Economic Expert Panel on innovation with Monika Schnitzer, Richard Gilbert and Tommaso Valletti as well as a panel on “Career Challenges” and panels on how a paper is born and how to win grants. In main and annex session more than 120 papers were presented.
Competition Law in Vaccination
The ASCOLA Regional Chapter UK presents the next season of virtual talks over lunch, starting 17 March 2021: Competition law in vaccination! To join the mailing list and to be up to date with what is going on, please look out for ASCOLA UK on Twitter and LinkedIn or write to Or Brook and Magali Eben directly.
After lockdowns and travel restrictions set in, the ASCOLA UK Chapter under the leadership of Magali Eben and Or Brook started a series of virtual talks called “Competition Law in Isolation”. This format developed to be an ace opportunity to showcase ongoing work and to discuss current issues of competition law.
Further competition talks have in the meantime been organised by other Regional Chapters of ASCOLA. We are happy and grateful for such a well-functioning network! Please check out the announcements on LinkedIn and Twitter or address the heads of the Regional Chapters for being included in the mailing lists.
15th ASCOLA Conference
Annual ASCOLA (Virtual) Conference The 15th ASCOLA Conference took place as a virtual event from June 25– 27 June 2020 with around 100 talks over three days, scheduled so as to accomodate different time zones. A keynote address was given by the EU Commission’s Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager. Several special events, like book presentations, an economist panel and a panel for young scholars with tips for a successful career by distinguished professors made this Virtual Conference a memorable experience. It was organised on a virtual basis due to the 2020 pandemic when travelling was not an option. The organising team was constituted from the universities of Düsseldorf, Haifa and Zurich. For more information, videos and papers from the conference click here. A report on the ASCOLA conference was published here.
14th ASCOLA Conference
Aix-en-Provence Faculty of Law The 14th ASCOLA conference took place at Aix-en-Provence on June 27– 29 June 2019. Professor David Bosco and his team had invited the ASCOLA community to Southern France where we experienced one of the hottest conferences ever. Temperatures on the outside were somewhat matched by the intense discussions inside. The general topic was “Challenges to Assumptions at the Basis of Competition Law”. Apart from this general theme, breakout sessions were held on wider competition law issues. The conference also featured an economist session, a session on teaching and a visit to a vineyard.
