Analysis Group Consultants Summarize ABA Antitrust Webinar on Innovation Competition
February 18, 2026
In a webinar recap published by the American Bar Association (ABA) Antitrust Law Section, Analysis Group Vice President Olga Kozlova Guglielmi, Associate András Jagadits, and coauthor Laia Chueca Azlor of Amadeus IT Group summarize a September 2025 ABA panel discussion exploring how innovation is reshaping competition analysis and merger enforcement. Moderated by Dr. Kozlova Guglielmi, the panel featured Professor Florian Ederer (Boston University), Meghan Rissmiller (Freshfields), Rahul Rao (White & Case; former deputy director of the FTC Bureau of Competition), and Michaela Spero (Amadeus IT Group).
The panel examined emerging antitrust challenges associated with innovation-driven mergers, including the assessment of nascent competition, “killer acquisitions,” and patterns of repeated acquisitions. Panelists discussed the difficulty of applying traditional market-definition tools to forward-looking transactions involving products and technologies that may not yet exist, as well as the treatment of innovation competition under the 2023 Merger Guidelines. The discussion underscored the inherent difficulty of evaluating innovation-driven mergers, where competitive effects depend on uncertain technological trajectories, evolving business models, and products that may never fully materialize.
The conversation also addressed the impact of mergers on innovation incentives, the limits of structural remedies in innovation-intensive markets, and the growing importance of cross-jurisdictional coordination in merger review. Drawing on recent enforcement actions and court decisions in the US and Europe, the panelists emphasized that innovation competition remains one of the most complex and dynamic areas of antitrust law, with firms facing heightened scrutiny and evolving regulatory approaches.