Building digital capacity to strengthen the ability of competition authorities to act: the ICN adopts a joint statement

On 25 and 26 March, representatives from digital markets and technologist teams from competition and consumer protection authorities participated in the Technologist Forum organised in Washington D.C. (United States) by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as part of the International Competition Network (ICN). More than 20 agencies convened with the goals of sharing experiences and promoting increasing digital and technology capacity in competition authorities. It is the first such global meeting of technologists from competition and consumer protection authorities.

Following the forum, the participating agencies – including the Autorité de la concurrence – adopted a joint statement reaffirming three key points:

• The need to strengthen digital capacity due to the increasing digitization of the economy.
• The need to strengthen antitrust enforcement efforts through increased in-house expertise and technical capacity.
• The need to strengthen international agency cooperation at the level of technical experts.