The Digital Ecosystem: Innovation and Competition

Khushita covers US antitrust enforcement and litigation for MLex in Washington, DC. She previously covered EU competition law in Brussels where she broke news on high-profile antitrust and merger investigations. She has covered the EU’s actions against Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, to name a few. Now in the US, she closely tracks landmark antitrust lawsuits and investigations initiated by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission against some large digital platforms. She’s often in federal courts across the US to report on high-profile civil and criminal antitrust litigation, and on Capitol Hill to cover developments on a set of critical antitrust bills pending in Congress. Khushita specializes in coverage of intellectual property, with notable scoops on US policy developments and EU investigations in the field of standard-essential patents. Her articles on SEPs have been nominated for the Concurrences Antitrust Writing Awards. Khushita previously wrote about monetary policy, and the bond and FX markets for The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in Mumbai.

Bill Baer is a visiting fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institute. He is one of the world’s best known and respected antitrust/competition enforcers. Bill is the only person to have led antitrust enforcement at both U.S. antitrust agencies, serving as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice from 2013 to 2016, and as Director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission from 1995 to 1999.

Bill worked at the Federal Trade Commission on two different occasions: from 1995-99, as Director of the Bureau of Competition; and from 1975-1980 as Attorney Advisor to the Chairman and Assistant General Counsel for Legislation and Congressional Relations. While not in public service Bill headed the highly regarded antitrust practice at Arnold & Porter, representing a broad range of companies in US and international cartel investigations, antitrust litigation, and mergers and acquisition reviews by antitrust enforcers, including the DOJ, FTC, state attorneys general, and the European Commission.

Bill received his JD in 1975 from Stanford Law School, where he served as Senior Article Editor of The Stanford Law Review, and his BA in 1972 from Lawrence University, which recently awarded him its Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.

Howard Shelanski earned his B.A. from Haverford College and received his J.D. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. After graduating from law school he clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judge Louis H. Pollak of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, and Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court. After practicing law in Washington, D.C., Professor Shelanski joined the Berkeley faculty in 1997, where he remained until coming to Georgetown in 2011.

Professor Shelanski has held several positions in the federal government. From 2013 to 2017, he served as Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Before President Obama nominated him to OIRA, Professor Shelanski was Director of the Bureau of Economics at the Federal Trade Commission from 2012 to 2013, where he had previously been Deputy Director from 2009 to 2011. Earlier in his career, he was Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission (1999-2000) and a Senior Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers at the White House (1998-1999).

In addition to being a member of the Georgetown Law faculty, Professor Shelanski practices antitrust law and is a member of the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.

Will Thibeau is a policy analyst in the Tech Policy Center at The Heritage Foundation. In this role, Will drives policy research and recommendations related to “Big Tech.” Topics for public engagement include antitrust action, data privacy, and free discourse policies.

Before joining Heritage, Will worked at The American Conservative (TAC), where he was senior director of operations. At TAC, he spearheaded two major events, “Up From Chaos” and “Crony Capitalism.” Crony Capitalism, an event with Senator Ron Johnson, was banned across multiple tech platforms.

In addition to this experience with Big Tech censorship, Will brings a wealth of tech knowledge and expertise from his years at Palantir, where he delivered artificial intelligence and machine learning software to the military.

Before Palantir, Will was a U.S. Army Infantry Officer with the 75th Ranger Regiment. As a Ranger, Will deployed in support of the Global War on Terror multiple times.

He possesses a tech skillset that includes DevOps, data management, and IT asset management. He is a graduate of Fordham University.

Will lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, Michelle, and their children.

Mr. Grunes is an antitrust lawyer in Brownstein’s DC office who advises clients on mergers and acquisitions and represents clients before the federal and state antitrust agencies and Congress.  He has experience in a range of industries including media and entertainment, telecommunications, healthcare, and the high-tech sector.  He previously spent more than a decade at the USDOJ Antitrust Division.

Mr. Grunes is co-author of Big Data and Competition Policy (Oxford University Press).  He currently serves on the Advisory Boards of the American Antitrust Institute and the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.  He holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, a law degree from Rutgers University, and a master of laws degree from New York University.

Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, anticipate what’s ahead, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging development, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, Policy, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”

Jacques Crémer received his PhD from MIT in 1977 and has held appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and Virginia Tech University. Since 1991 he has been Professor at the Toulouse School of Economics, where he has held many administrative appointments, most recently being the first director of its Digital Centre. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the European Economic Association. He has done fundamental work on planning theory, auctions, incentive theory, organization economics, and more recently the digital economy. From April 2018 to March 2019, he was a Special Adviser to European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager, and in that capacity co-authored the report “Competition Policy for the Digital Era”. He is an active participant in the debates on the regulation of “Big Tech”.

Josh Sisco is a reporter with POLITICO, where he covers antitrust enforcement, policy and litigation. His coverage is focused on how regulators and policy makers are fighting to rein in corporate power and the pushback from the companies and their Washington allies.

Josh has spent the last nine years on the antitrust beat, most recently at The Information, where he covered the heightened scrutiny of the tech giants, including Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. Josh is an experienced legal and financial journalist who follows civil and criminal antitrust litigation along with government investigations. He has previously worked for publications including MLex, the Policy and Regulatory Report and The Capitol Forum.

Josh earned his B.A. in communications at Sonoma State University in Northern California, studying journalism and sociology.

John M. Taladay is Co-Chair of the Antitrust practice of Baker Botts. He is well-recognized as a leading global antitrust practitioner, known for his work in gaining merger approvals, defending criminal cartel investigations, litigating civil antitrust cases and managing complex international competition matters.

In working closely with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, the European Commission and other international agencies, Mr. Taladay has extensive experience in gaining merger clearances particularly in the technology, media, telecommunications, consumer products, software and pharmaceutical sectors and traditional industries including the automotive, airline, primary metals, agriculture, food, chemicals and electronics sectors.

Mr. Taladay has also led the defense of U.S. and foreign corporations and individuals in dozens of major cartel matters including antitrust grand jury investigations into allegations of price fixing, bid-rigging, market allocation and related offenses. He has navigated corporate clients through a range of cartel representation strategies from steadfast defense to leniency application to formal non-prosecution treatment. His litigation work includes acting as lead counsel in numerous civil antitrust class action and other litigation matters involving nearly all aspects of the antitrust laws.

Melanie Aitken is the Managing Principal of Bennett Jones (US) LLP. She is also co-head of the competition and foreign investment practice of Bennett Jones. She specializes in global antitrust and competition law and litigation.

Melanie served as Canada’s Competition Commissioner, in charge of the Canadian Competition Bureau from 2009 to 2012, having previously served as the Senior Deputy Commissioner leading merger review from 2006 to 2009.

While serving as Commissioner, Melanie led many high-profile civil and criminal matters and worked extensively with leaders of international antitrust authorities around the world on enforcement and policy cases, holding leadership roles in key international organizations, such as the Steering Committee of the International Competition Network.

Melanie was a partner at Bennett Jones and Davies Ward Philips & Vineberg before joining the Bureau in 2005. She has acted as counsel in the Supreme Court of Canada and represented the merging parties in Canada’s leading efficiencies case, Superior Propane. Melanie has an active antitrust advisory, trial and commercial practice, representing major Canadian and US companies in significant matters across a broad range of industries.

Melanie is a frequent speaker and commentator on competition issues, and has taught as an Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall and Queen’s Law Schools. She is active on the C.D. Howe Institute’s Competition Policy Council, and sits on the Advisory Boards of the Global Antitrust Institute, Schulich School of Business (Toronto, Canada), and W@CompetitionAmericas, and has been appointed a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Melanie also serves as a non-governmental advisor to the International Competition Network.

Doug Melamed is Professor of the Practice of Law at Stanford Law School.  He joined the Stanford faculty in 2014.  In the Fall of 2017, he was the Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor in the Practice of Law at Yale Law School.

From 2009 until 2014, Doug was Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Intel Corporation and was responsible for overseeing Intel’s legal, government affairs, and corporate affairs departments. Prior to joining Intel in 2009, he was a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of WilmerHale, a global law firm in which he served as a chair of the Antitrust and Competition Practice Group.  From 1996 to 2001, he served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division and, before that, as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General.

Doug has authored numerous articles on antitrust, patent law, and law and economics. He is a member of the American Law Institute and a Contributing Editor of the Antitrust Law Journal and a former member of the boards of directors of the Nasdaq exchanges.  Doug received his B.A. from Yale and his J.D. from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Diana Moss became the President of the American Antitrust Institute in January 2015. Since joining AAI in 2001, Dr. Moss has developed and expanded AAI’s advocacy channels and strategies, and strengthened communications with public and private enforcers, Congress, other advocacy groups, and the media. Her work spans both antitrust and regulation, with industry expertise in other areas.  From 1995 to 2001, Dr. Moss served in the Office of Economic Policy and Office of Markets, Tariffs, and Rates at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. There, she coordinated the agency’s economic analysis for electricity mergers and contributed to the development of the landmark open access rules. From 1989 to 1995, she consulted in private practice in the areas of regulation and antitrust. Dr. Moss is also Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Dr. Moss has spoken widely on various topics involving competition policy and enforcement, testified before Congress, appeared before state and federal regulatory commissions, at industry and academic conferences, and made numerous radio and television appearances. She has published articles in numerous economic and legal journals as well.

Dr. Moss was named to the GCR’s Women in Antitrust in 2016 and again in 2021.  In 2021, Dr. Moss was inducted into the American Bar Association Antitrust Law Section’s Hall of Fame-inism.  She holds a M.A. degree from the University of Denver and a Ph.D. from the Colorado School of Mines.