At the DACH Forum on Competition Policy hosted by Compass Lexecon in Vienna, Vicky Robertson held a keynote asking “Can Competition Law Save Democracy?”, based on her recent paper with Ariel Ezrachi (available here). After delving into the question whether democracy needed saving, she outlined the external benchmark approach that allows competition authorities to (also) base their assessment of competition on the merits on laws specifically aimed at protecting democracy (eg, Digital Services Act, European Media Freedom Act, Regulation on Targeted Political Advertising), based on the Court of Justice’s Meta judgment of July 2023.
