[en] This research paper questions to what extent the AI Act allows for algorithmic regulation and decision-making to take shape in competition law. It first summarises the algorithmicising of competition law proceedings. It then discusses algorithmic decision-making under the AI Act. Annex III of the AI Act qualifies as high-risk AI systems intended to be used by law enforcement authorities in the course of detection, investigation and prosecution of criminal offences. As some EU Member States criminalised competition law, this would mean the AI Act might apply to AI systems used in competition proceedings. Competition law is, however, not qualified as criminal in all Member States. This paper therefore questions the opportunity to use the dichotomic relation between hard core and peripheral law developed by both the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. This paper argues, however, that such solution is doomed to failure. A contextual interpretation of the Proposal prevents any application of the AI Act to competition law through the back-door of peripheral criminal law. The paper concludes by imagining the competition landscape after the AI Act. On countries wherein competition law is criminal, national competition authorities will have to take that Regulation into account when developing AI systems that detect, investigate and prosecute competition infringements. As not all EU Member States have criminalised competition law, this would result in an imbalance between domestic legal orders that goes against the prime ambition of the AI Act, i.e., harmonisation.
Disciplines :
Droit européen & international
Auteur, co-auteur :
De Cooman, Jérôme ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de droit > Droit matériel européen
Langue du document :
Anglais
Titre :
Without Any Prejudice? The Antitrust Implication of the AI Act
Date de publication/diffusion :
13 juin 2022
Nom de la manifestation :
IAIL2022: Imagining the AI Landscape after the AI Act
European Commission, Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence act) and amending certain Union legislative acts, COM(2021) 206 final, April 21, 2021, https://eurlex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52021PC0206.
Nathalie A. Smuha, “From a 'race to AI' to a 'race to AI regulation': Regulatory competition for artificial intelligence”, Law, Innovation and Technology 13(1), 57-84 (2021).
Michael Vaele and Frederik Zuiderveen Borgesius, “Demystifying the Draft EU Artificial Intelligence Act”, Computer Law Review International 4, 97-112 (2021).
Nathalie Smuha et al., “How the EU can achieve Legally Trustworthy AI: A Response to the European Commission's Proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act”, SSRN, 5 August 2021, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3899991.
Meeri Haataja and Joanna J. Bryson, “Reflections on the EU's AI Act and How we Could Make It Even Better”, Competition Policy International, 24 March 2022, https://www.competitionpolicyinternational.com/reflections-on-the-eus-ai-act-and-how-wecould-make-it-even-better/.
Julia Black, “The role of risk in regulatory processes”, in Robert Baldwin et al., The Oxford Handbook of Regulation, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2010).
Jerome De Cooman, “Humpty Dumpty and High-Risk AI Systems: The Ratione Materiae Dimension of the Proposal for an EU Artificial Intelligence Act”, Competition & Market Law Review 6(1) in press (2022).
Tim O'Reilly “Open Data and Algorithmic Regulation” in Brett Goldstein and Lauren Dyson (eds), Beyond Transparency: Open Data and the Future of Civic Innovation, Code for America Press, San Francisco (2013), 291.
Karen Yeung, “Algorithmic regulation: A critical interrogation”, Regulation & Governance 12(4), 505-523 at 507 (2018).
Mireille Hildebrandt, “Algorithmic regulation and the rule of law”, Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society 376(2128), 2 (2018).
David Restropo Amariles, “Algorithmic Decision Systems: Automation and Machine Learning in the Public Administration”, in Woodrow Barfield (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Law of Algorithms, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2020), 251-272.
Jorge Gallego, Gonzalo Rivero and Juan Martinez, “Preventing rather than punishing: An early warning model of malfeasance in public procurement”, International Journal of Forecasting 37(1), 360-377 (2021).
Thibault Schrepel, “Computational Antitrust: An Introduction and Research Agenda”, Stanford Computational Antitrust 1 (2021).
Margrethe Vestager, “Speech at the Fordham Competition Conference”, October 8th, 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/vestager/announcements/speechfordham-competition-conference_en.
OECD, “Using Leniency to Fight Hard Core Cartels”, OECD Policy Brief, September 2001, retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/daf/ca/1890449.pdf.
Peter G. Bryant and E. Woodrow Eckard, “Price Fixing: The Probability of Getting Caught”, The Review of Economics and Statistics 73(3), 531-536 (1991).
Emmanuel Combe, Constance Monnier and Renaud Legal, “Cartels: The Probability of Getting Caught in the European Union”, SSRN, 20 September 2007 (last revised 2 October 2008), retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1015061.
Peter L. Ormosi, “A Tip of the Iceberg? The Probability of Catching Cartels”, Journal of Applied Econometrics 29(4), 549-566 (2013).
Emmanuel Combe, Economie et politique de la concurrence, 2nd ed., Dalloz, Paris (2020).
Nicolo Zingales, “European and American Leniency Programmes: Two Models Towards Convergence?”, Competition Law Review 5(1), 5-60 (2008).
Nathan H. Miller, “Strategic Leniency and Cartel Enforcement”, American Economic Review 99(3), 750-768 (2009).
Andreas Stephan, “The Direct Settlement of EC Cartel Cases”, International & Comparative Law Quarterly 58(3), 627-654 (2009).
Patrick Rey, “Towards a Theory of Competition Policy”, in Mathias Dewatripont, Lars Peter Hansen and Stephen J. Turnovsky (eds.), Advances in Economics and Econometrics: Theory and Application, Eighth World Congress, Vol. II, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2003), 82-132.
Cécile Aubert, Patrick Rey and William E. Kovacic, “The impact of leniency and whistle-blowing programs on cartels”, International Journal of Industrial Organization 24(6), 1241-1266 (2006).
Joe Chen and Joseph E Harrington, Jr, “The Impact of the Corporate Leniency Program on Cartel Formation and the Cartel Price Path” in Vivek Ghosal and Johan Stennek (eds.), The Political Economy of Antitrust, Contributions to Economic Analysis Vol. 282, Emerald Group Publishing, Bingley, (2007) 59-80.
Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., “Optimal Corporate Leniency Programs”, The Journal of Industrial Economic 56(2), 215-246 (2008).
Giancarlo Spagnolo, “Leniency and Whistleblowers in Antitrust”, in Paolo Buccirossi, Handbook of Antitrust Economics, The MIT Press, Cambridge (2008) 259-304.
Joseph E. Harrington, Jr. and Myong-Hun Chang, “Modeling the Birth and Death of Cartel with an Application to Evaluating Competition Policy”, Journal of the European Economic Association 7(6), 1400-1435 (2009).
Yassine Lefouili and Catherine Roux, “Leniency programs for multimarket firms: The effect of Amnesty Plus on cartel formation”, International Journal of Industrial Organization 30(6), 624-640 (2012).
Zhijun Chen and Patrick Rey, “On the Design of Leniency Programs”, The Journal of Law & Economics 56(4), 917-957 (2013).
Leslie M. Marx and Claudio Mezzetti, “Effects of antitrust leniency on concealment effort by colluding firms”, Journal of Antitrust Enforcement 2(2), 305-332 (2014).
Joseph E. Harrington, Jr. and Myong-Hun Chang, “When Can We Expect a Corporate Leniency Program to Result in Fewer Cartels?”, The Journal of Law & Economics 58(2), 417-449 (2015).
Margrethe Vestager, “A new era of cartel enforcement”, Speech at the Italian Antitrust Association Annual Conference, October 22nd, 2021, retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/vestager/announcements/speech-evpm-vestager-italian-antitrust-association-annual-conference-new-era-cartel-enforcement_en.
Adeline Archimbaud, “Les programmes de clémence européens et les actions privées de concurrence: Les liaisons dangereuses”, Concurrences: Revue des droits de la concurrence (Competition Law Review), n°3-2020, retrieved from https://www.concurrences.com/en/review/issues/no-3-2020/articles/les-programmes-declemence-europeens-et-les-actions-privees-de-concurrence-les-en.
Marc Deschamps and Frederic Marty, “Détection et sanction des ententes anticoncurrentielles: l'éclairage de l'analyse économique du droit”, Revue économique et sociale 4, 71-82 (2006).
Eric Van Ginderachter, during the 2018 International Competition Network (ICN) Cartel Workshop from October 15 to 18, 2018, In Tel Aviv, Israel, quoted in Christian Ritz and Lorenz Marx, “Leniency Carrots and Cartels Sticks - A Practitioners' View on Recent Trends and Challenges Presented by the EU Leniency Program”, CPI Antitrust Chronicle, January 2019, retrieved from https://www.competitionpolicyinternational.com/leniency-carrots-and-cartelsticks-a-practitioners-view-on-recent-trends-and-challenges-presented-by-the-eu-leniencyprogram/.
European Court of Auditors, “The Commission's EU merger control and antitrust proceedings: a need to scale up market oversight”, Special Report n°24, November 2020, https://op.europa.eu/webpub/eca/special-reports/eu-competition-24-2020/en/.
Directorate for financial and enterprise affairs - Competition committee, “Ex Officio cartel investigations and the use of screens to detect cartels”, OECD Competition Law & Policy Roundtables, DAF/COMP(2013)27, 7 July 2014, retrieved from https://www.fne.gob.cl/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/2013-Ex-officio-cartels-investigation-3569-KB1.pdf.
Jean Tirole, The Theory of Industrial Organisation, The MIT press, Cambridge (1988) (seventh printing 1994), p. 239.
Frederic M. Scherer, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance, Rand McNally & Company, Chicago (1970).
Robert C Marshall and Leslie M. Marx, The Economics of Collusion: Cartels and Bidding Rings, The MIT Press, Cambridge (2012).
Arthur G. Fraas and Douglas F. Greer, “Market Structure and Price Collusion: An Empirical Analysis”, Journal of Reprints for Antitrust and Economics 10(1), 465-490 (1979).
Margaret C. Levenstein and Valerie Y. Suslow, “What Determines Cartel Success?”, Journal of Economic Literature 44(1), 43-95 (2006).
Joseph J. Harrington, Jr., “Some Thoughts on Why Certain Markets are More Susceptible to Collusion”, OECD - Global Forum on Competition - “serial Offenders”, 29-30 October 2015, retrieved from https://joeharrington5201922.github.io/pdf/Harrington_OECD_10.15.pdf.
Maria Bigoni, Jan Potters and Giancarlo Spagnolo, “Frequency of interaction, communication and collusion: an experiment”, Economic Theory 68(4), 827-844 (2019).
Paul A. Groutt and Silvia Sonderegger, “Structural Approaches to Cartel Detection”, in Claus-Dieter Ehlermann and Isabela Atanasiu (eds.), European Competition Law Annual 2006: Enforcement of Prohibition of Cartels, Hart Publishing, Oxford, retrieved from https://danielmorochoruiz.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/paul-grout-structural-approaches-tocartel-detection.pdf.
Jonas Häckner, “Collusive pricing in markets for vertically differentiated products”, International Journal of Industrial Organization 12(2), 155-177 (1994).
Iwan Bos and Marco A. Marini, “Cartel stability under quality differentiation”, Economic Letters 174, 70-73 (2019).
Iwan Bos, Marco A. Marini and Riccardo D. Saulle, “Cartel formation with quality differentiation”, Mathematical Social Sciences 106, 36-50 (2020).
George Symeonidis, “Cartel stability in advertising-intensive and R&D intensive industries”, Economic Letter 62(1), 121-129 (1999).
Georges Symeonidis, “In Which Industries Is Collusion More Likely? Evidence from the UK”, The Journal of Industrial Economics 51(1), 45-74 (2003).
Marc Ivaldi et al., “The Economics of Tacit Collusion”, Final Report for DG Competition, European Commission, 2003, retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/competitionpolicy/system/files/2021-04/the_economics_of_tacit_collusion_2003.pdf.
Cristopher M. Snyder, “A Dynamic Theory of Countervailing Power”, The RAND Journal of Economics 27(4), 747-769 (1996).
Martin Huber and David Imhof, “Machine learning with screens for detecting bid-rigging cartels”, International Journal of Industrial Organization 65, 277-301 (2019).
Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, “Detecting Cartels”, in Paolo Buccirossi (ed.), Handbook of Antitrust Economics, The MIT Press, Cambridge (2008), 213-258 at 232.
Christian Lorenz, “Screening markets for cartel detection: Collusive markers in the CFD cartel-audit”, European Journal of Law and Economics 26(2), 213-232 (2008).
Patrick Rey, “On the Use of Economic Analysis in Cartel Detection”, in Claus-Dieter Ehlermann and Isabela Atanasiu (eds.), European Competition Law Annual: 2006, Hart Publishing, Oxford (2007), 69-82.
Elisabetta Iossa, Simon Loertscher, Leslie M. Marx and Patrick Rey, “Collusive Market Allocations”, Working Paper, 26 March 2020, retrieved from https://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~marx/bio/papers/MarketAllocation.pdf.
Joseph E. Harrington, Jr, “How Do Cartels Operate?”, Foundation and Trends in Microeconomics 2(1), 1-105 (2006).
Commission of the European Communities, “Commission Staff Working Paper accompanying the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and Council: Report on the Functioning of Regulation 1/2003”, COM(2009)206 final, 29 April 2009
Commission Notice on best practices for the conduct of proceedings concerning Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, OJ C 308, 20 October 2011, pp. 6-31, §13.
Andreas von Bonin and Sharon Malhi, “The Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Future of Competition Law Enforcement”, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice 11(8), 468-471 at 469 (2020).
Nathalie de Marcellis-Warin, Frederic Marty and Thierry Warin, “Vers un virage algorithmique de la lutte anticartels? Explicabilité et redevabilité à l'aube des algorithmes de surveillance”, Revue Internationale d'éthique sociétale et gouvernementale 23(2), 1-20 (2021).
Albert Sanchez-Graells, “'Screening for Cartels' in Public Procurement: Cheating at Solitaire to Sell Fool's Gold?”, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice 10(4), 199-211 (2019).
Kevin P. Murphy, Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective, The MIT Press, Cambridge (2012).
Keith Frankish and William M. Ramsey (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2014).
David Lehr and Paul Ohm, “Playing with the Data: What Legal Scholars Should Learn About Machine Learning”, UC Davis Law Review 51(2), 653-717 (2017).
M. Emre Celebi and Kemal Aydin, “Preface” in M. Emre Celebi and Kemal Aydin (eds.), Unsupervised Learning Algorithms, Springer, Cham (2016).
Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz and D. Daniel Sokol, “The Lessons from Libor for Detection and Deterrence of Cartel Wrongdoing”, Harvard Business Law Review Online 3, 10-16 (2012).
Nathalie De Marcellis-Warin and Thierry Warin, “Les mégadonnées entre possibilités et risques: à la recherche d'un nouvel équilibre”, Gestion 42(1), 72-75 (2017).
Douglas Silveira et al., “Won't Get Fooled Again: A supervised machine learning approach for screening gasoline cartels”, Energy Economics 105 (2022), Article 105711, retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105711.
David Danks, “Learning” in Keith Frankish and William M. Ramsey (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2014), 151-167.
Brian J. Fogg, Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco (2003).
Kate Goddard, Abdul Roudsari and Jeremy C. Wyatt, “Automation bias: a systemic review of frequency, effect mediators, and mitigators”, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association: JAMIA 19(1) 121-127 (2012).
European Commission, Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence act) and amending certain Union legislative acts, COM(2021) 206 final, April 21, 2021, Explanatory Memorandum.
Caron Beaton-Wells and Christine Parker, “Justifying criminal sanctions for cartel conduct: a hard case”, Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, 1(1), 198-219 (2013).
Peter Whelan, The Criminalization of European Cartel Enforcement: Theoretical, Legal, and Practical Challenges, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2014).
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Council, Recommendation of the Council concerning effective action against hard core cartels, adopted by the Council at its 921st Session on 25 March 1998, C(98)35/Final, p. 3, https://one.oecd.org/document/C(98)35/FINAL/en/pdf.
Christopher Harding and Joshua Joshua, Regulating Cartels in Europe: A Study of Legal Control of Corporate Delinquency, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2003).
Donald I. Baker and Barbara A. Reeves, “The Paper Label Sentences: Critique”, Yale Law Journal 86(4) 619-644 at 630-631 (1977).
Keith Jones and Farin Harrison, “Criminal Sanctions: An Overview of EU and National Case Law”, Concurrence Bulletin, Art. No. 64713, https://www.concurrences.com/fr/bulletin/specialissues/criminal-sanctions/ententes/criminal-sanctions-an-overview-of-eu-and-national-case-law-64713.
Kane Abry-Diaw de Baye, “EU: The Criminalisation of Competition Law Breaches - Another Attempt to Square the Circle?”, Concurrence Review, No. 1-2020, retrieved from https://www.concurrences.com/en/review/issues/no-1-2020/international/kane-abry-diaw-debaye.
Albert Sanchez-Graells, “Competition and Public Procurement”, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice 9(8), 551-559 (2018).
Lucio D'Amario, Giorgio Gian Battista Valoto, “The Trenitalia Bid Rigging Judgement and the Use of Criminal Evidence in Antitrust Case”, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice 10(5), 317-321 (2019).
Katalin Cseres, “Relationship between EU Competition Law and national competition laws”, in Ioannis Lianos and Damien Geradin (eds.), Handbook on European Competition Law: Enforcement and Procedure, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham (2013) 539-557.
Regulation No 17 First Regulation implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty, OJ 13, 21 February 1962, pp. 204-211.
Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty, OJ L 1, 4 January 2003, pp. 1-25.
Terry Calvani and Kaethe M. Carl, “The Competition Act 2002, ten years later: lessons from the Irish experience of prosecuting cartels as criminal offences”, Journal of Antitrust Enforcement 1(2), 296-324 (2013).
Robert Saint-Esteben, “Une repénalisation du droit de la concurrence en France ? À propos de l'utilisation de l'article 40 du Code de procédure pénale par les services d'instruction de l'Autorité”, Concurrences, No. 2-2019, 54-65 (2019).
John Zerilli and Adrian Weller, “The Technology”, in Matt Hervey and Matthew Lavy (eds.), The Law of Artificial Intelligence, Sweet & Maxwell, London (2021).
Ira S. Rubinstein, “Big Data: The End of Privacy or a New Beginning?” International Data Privacy Law 3(2), 74-87 (2013).
Albert Sanchez-Graells, “'Screening for Cartels' in Public Procurement: Cheating at Solitaire to Sell Fool's Gold?”, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice 10(4), 199-211 (2019).
Vanessa Franssen, “La notion 'pénale': mot magique ou critère trompeur? Réflexions sur les distinctions entre le droit pénal et le droit quasi pénal”, in Delphine Brah-Thiel (ed.), Existe-t-il un seul non bis in idem aujourd'hui ?, L'Harmattan, Paris, (2018) 57-91.
H. M. Hart, “The Aims of the Criminal Law”, Law and Contemporary Problems 34(3), 401-441 (1958).
Joel Feinberg, Doing & Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility, Princeton University Press, Princeton (1970).
R. Antony Duff, Trials and Punishment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1986).
Douglas Husak, Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2008).
Pascal Bergue, “Recent Developments in the Case-Law of the ECtHR on the Right to a Fair Trial in Competition Proceedings”, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice 10(8), 485-490 (2019).
Pieter Van Cleynenbreugel, “Le non bis in idem en droit de la concurrence: un monde de différence avec le pénal ?”, in Delphine Brach-Thiel (ed.), Existe-t-il encore un seul non bis in idem aujourd'hui, L'Harmattan Paris (2018) 171-207.
Antoine Bailleux, “The fiftieth shade of grey: Competition law, 'criministrative law” and 'fairly fair trials'”, in Anne Weyemberg and Francesca Galli (eds.), Do Labels still matter? Blurring boundaries between criminal and administrative law. The influence of the EU, Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles, Brussels (2014), 137-152 at 138.
Georges P. Fletcher, Rethinking Criminal Law, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2000) 412.
John A. E. Vervaele, The Europeanisation of Criminal Law and the Criminal Law Dimension of European Integration, Brugge, College of Europe, Research Paper in Law 3/2005 (2005) 10.
Ronald Wright and Marc Miller, “Honesty and Opacity in Charge Bargains”, Stanford Law Review 55(4), 1409-1417 at 1415 (2003).
Vanessa Franssen and Solène Vandeweerd, “Supranational Administrative Criminal Law”, Revue Internationale de Droit Pénal 90(2), 13-83 (2019).
Vanessa Franssen and Christopher Harding (eds.), Criminal and Quasi-criminal Enforcement Mechanisms in Europe, Hart Publishing, Oxford (2022).
John Willis, “Statutory Interpretation in a Nutshell”, Canadian Bar Review 16(1), 1-27 at 6 (1938).
European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document Impact Assessment, Annexes Accompanying the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council Laying Down Harmonised Rules on Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) and Amending Certain Union Legislative Acts, SWD(2021) 84 Final, Part 1/2.
European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document Impact Assessment, Annexes Accompanying the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council Laying Down Harmonised Rules on Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) and Amending Certain Union Legislative Acts, SWD(2021) 84 Final, Part 2/2.
Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice E. Stucke, Virtual Competition: The promise and perils of the algorithm-driven economy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (2016).
Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice E. Stucke, “Artificial Intelligence & Collusion: When computers inhibit competition”, University of Illinois Law Review 2017(5), 1775-1810 (2017).
Suzanne Rab, “Artificial intelligence, algorithms and antitrust”, Competition Law Journal 18(4), 141-150 (2019).
Luca Calzolari, “The Misleading Consequences of Comparing Algorithmic and Tacit Collusion: Tackling Algorithmic Concerted Practices under Art. 101 TFEU”, European Papers 6(2), 1193-1228 (2021).
Ashwin Ittoo and Nicolas Petit, “Algorithmic Pricing Agent and Tacit Collusion: A Technological Perspective”, in Hervé Jacquemin and Alexandre de Streel (eds.), L'Intelligence Artificielle et le Droit, Larcier, Brussels (2017) 241-258.
Ulrich Schwalbe, “Algorithms, Machine Learning, and Collusion”, Journal of Competition Law & Economics 14(4), 568-607 (2018).
Axel Gautier, Ashwin Ittoo and Pieter Van Cleynenbreugel, “AI algorithms, price discrimination and collusion: a technological, economic and legal perspective”, European Journal of Law and Economics 50 (2020), 405-435.
