Dr. Chris Pike, Partner at Fideres and Head of Digital Markets, has contributed a chapter to a new book on blockchain and competition policy. Building on his past publications on the topic for the OECD Competition Committee, Competition Law & Policy Debate, and the OECD Blockchain Policy Centre, this paper focuses less on the antitrust risks posed by blockchain technology, and more on the reasons for optimism, and in particular, why decentralised permission-less blockchains might offer the prospect of radical pro-competitive and inclusive efficiencies, and hence might contribute to a pro-competitive industrial policy. It therefore proposes that governments and agencies be pro-active in exploring whether actions by incumbents and regulators might create barriers to the emergence of a particular type of Blockchain, specifically decentralised permission-less blockchains with platform functionality.
You can find more information on the publication here.
Chris joined Fideres in 2021. Chris holds a PhD, an MA and BA in Economics from the University of East Anglia. At Fideres Chris has provided expert economic advice on class action complaints against Amazon, Facebook and Apple. He has written expert reports, developed models to quantify damages, and developed analysis of market definition and abuse of dominance (monopolization) in digital aftermarkets and multi-sided platforms.
Before joining Fideres, Chris spent 7 years as a Competition Expert for the OECD where he led the economic thinking on antitrust in digital markets, as well the role for competition law in delivering inclusivity. He published numerous papers and led a working party of the OECD Competition Committee in developing new international standards on competitive neutrality and competitive assessment in light of the digitalization of the economy.
Chris has advised the UK Government’s Department of Trade & Industry on the benefits of competition policy, and the UK Competition Commission (predecessor to the Competition and Markets Authority) on digital mergers, retail market investigations and competition cases. He was an advisor to the Co-operation and Competition Panel on mergers, market studies and antitrust in publicly-funded healthcare markets, and later became Director of Competition Economics at the UK Healthcare Regulator. Chris is a founding member of the Centre for Competition Policy of the University of East Anglia. He remains an associate of the Centre, a member of various advisory boards at non-profit making organizations, and peer reviews papers for the Journal of Competition Law and Economics & the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement.
