Digital Markets Act: Setting the right framework for a fair online economy

Lara Natale* is CERRE’s Director for Tech, Media, Telecom and Mobility. She leads the think tank’s research and activities related to these sectors.

Most recently, Lara co-led the Tech, Media, Telecoms practice at FTI Consulting in Brussels, providing strategic EU public policy and regulatory counsel to global businesses.

Prior to that, Lara was attachée at the (then-named) UK Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels, negotiating digital, culture, skills and other legislation. She also led the Brussels secretariat of a migrants’ rights NGO network, worked in two Westminster-based think tanks on UK social policies and in UK management consulting, and spent time teaching English in several countries, including Japan.

*Representing Kanso SRL

Alexandre de Streel is Academic Co-Director at CERRE and a professor of European law at the University of Namur and the Research Centre for Information, Law and Society (CRIDS/NADI). Since April 2021, he is also the Chair of the EU Observatory on Online Platform Economy.

He is a Hauser Global Fellow at New York University (NYU) Law School and visiting professor at the European University Institute, SciencesPo Paris and Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, and also assessor at the Belgian Competition Authority.

His main areas of research are regulation and competition policy in the digital economy as well as the legal issues raised by the developments of artificial intelligence. Recently, he advised the European Commission and the European Parliament on the regulation of online platforms.

Previously, Alexandre worked for the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, the Belgian Permanent Representation to the European Union and the European Commission (DG CONNECT). He holds a Ph.D. in Law from the European University Institute and a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Louvain.

Dr. John Evans is the Director of Strategy and Economics at ComReg, the Irish communications regulator, which he joined in 2015. John’s responsibilities include providing economic advice, the development of ComReg’s strategy for the electronic communications sector, research, and international activities relating to BEREC where he has served as an alternate member of the Board of Regulators since 2018.

Prior to joining ComReg, John worked in various roles at the Irish Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (and previously the Irish Competition Authority), latterly as the Director of Civil Competition Law Enforcement.

John holds a PhD in Economics from UCD, Ireland.

Lisa Felton leads the public policy strategy and engagement with policy makers in relation to major policy programmes and digital and telecoms regulation for Vodafone across its global footprint.

She has over 20 years’ experience as a lawyer and in policy both within Vodafone and in private practice.

She is a Visiting Policy Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, Chair of the GSMA Mobile Commerce Operator Expert Group and holds an MA from Oxford University in Law and a Masters in International Law of Human Rights.

Carel Maske is Senior Attorney with Microsoft in Brussels, covering antitrust in the EMEA region. In this role he provides antitrust counseling and training, manages antitrust-related investigations and litigation, and regularly engages on competition policy themes in the IT sector.

Before moving to Microsoft, he had practiced competition law with Latham & Watkins in Brussels and Frankfurt and with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Berlin.

Olivia Regnier has been Director of EU Regulatory Affairs at Spotify in Brussels since May 2017. She is in charge of Spotify’s policy in Europe, covering issues including e-Commerce, platforms regulation, copyright, data protection and taxation.

She is also Chair of Digital Music Europe, an association and representing European digital music services.

Previously, she was Director of the European Office of IFPI, representing the recording industry worldwide, and led the industry’s policy work in the EU on copyright reform, e-Commerce, enforcement and licensing.

Fiona M. Scott Morton is the Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics at the Yale University School of Management where she has been on the faculty since 1999.  Her area of academic research is industrial organization, with a focus on empirical studies of competition.

The focus of her current research is competition in healthcare markets and the economics of antitrust. From 2011-12 Professor Scott Morton served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economic Analysis (Chief Economist) at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where she helped enforce the nation’s antitrust laws.

At Yale SOM she teaches courses in the area of competitive strategy and antitrust economics. She served as Associate Dean from 2007-10 and has won the School’s teaching award three times. She founded and directs the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale, a vehicle to provide more antitrust programming and policy projects to Yale students.

Professor Scott Morton has a BA from Yale and a PhD from MIT, both in Economics. She is a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences across the United States and Europe.