Prof Willem Boshoff, Co-Director of the CCLE, is the holder of the prestigious Vloeberghs Chair from the Free University of Brussels in Belgium for 2024. The Chair is a teaching chair awarded biennially to a scholar working on legal issues at the intersection of international law, economics and informatics. As Chair, Prof Boshoff presented three public lectures at the Free University of Brussels, related to competition policy towards online intermediation platforms.
Competition policy towards digital platforms have received much attention in recent years, but with a focus on search and social media platforms. Increasingly, e-commerce and other platforms for online commerce are receiving more policy attention – both in South Africa and beyond. Policymakers and academic are concerned over the potential impact of network effects on competition in these markets, where platforms are linking end consumers to businesses. These network effects can lead to winner-takes-all outcomes and limit the entry possibilities for new players.
Prof Boshoff will be repeating these lectures online on the following dates:
- Lecture 1 (26 July 2024): Competition policy towards digital intermediation platforms: European antitrust and the African perspective
- Lecture 2 (2 August 2024): Evaluating potential competition in digital platform markets: American and European entrants versus African monopolists?
- Lecture 3 (16 August 2024): African exploits: wrestling with digital platform dominance and its impact on small business
Diarise these dates – registration will soon be possible.