Pubblicazioni

-Introduzione, di Federica Cacciatore e Nicoletta Rangone -La nuova legislatura europea 2019-2024 e l’agenda della better regulation: le prime mosse, di Nadia Marin -Capire la nostra natura politica nell’era della post-verità. Un report dell’Unione Europea, di Edoardo Guaschino -L’intervento regolatorio dell’ART in materia di affidamenti dei servizi di trasporto pubblico locale su strada e per ferrovia: analisi ex ante o ex post dell’impatto?, di Miriam Giorgio -L’Antitrust e la stima dell’impatto economico delle regolazioni anticoncorrenziali, di Gabriele Mazzantini -Quando applicare l’AIR? Il caso delle Linee guida n. 15 dell’ANAC sul conflitto di interessi nei contratti pubblici, di Luca Caianiello -Valorizzare la polivalenza dei dati personali per regolare i mercati digitali: note aggiuntive all’Indagine conoscitiva sui big data di AGCOM, AGCM e Garante privacy, di Matteo Falcone -Recensione. Processo decisionale automatizzato e diritto amministrativo: quali implicazioni per il principio di trasparenza? La riflessione di Michèle Finck, di Ludovica Sacchi

EU competition law is traditionally understood in two-dimensions: judicial control and enforcement. This paper considers a third dimension: its normative concerns in the context of EU law. In mapping the future of these dimensions, the paper asks if the understanding behind the modernisation of the Commission’s enforcement is still tenable. In relation to judicial control, the effects-based approach of modernisation has either been incorporated by the case law at the cost of its coherence or ignored. Regarding enforcement, modernisation has resulted in the Commission having to step outside its guidance and in multiple proposals to adjust competition rules. As for the normative dimension, modernisation’s emphasis on consumer welfare has not prevented openness to broader concerns and setting this priority aside in reaction to COVID-19. The direction of modernisation will thus continue to raise judicial difficulties and, should it hamper enforcement, possibly lead to legislation that marginalises competition law. A better alternative would be, as was done for COVID-19, to reinforce the normative connection with the rest of EU law.

Summary: - Introduzione, di Federica Cacciatore e Nicoletta Rangone - Le nuove indicazioni OCSE in tema di qualità della regolazione: i best practice principles sulla valutazione ex post, di Siriana Salvi - Doing Business 2020. L’importanza della qualità e della trasparenza regolatoria per lo sviluppo economico e imprenditoriale, di Simone Annaratone - Macchine “intelligenti” e discrezionalità delle decisioni pubbliche. Alcuni spunti di riflessione sulla regolazione europea e italiana, di Patrizia Calabrese - La Relazione al Parlamento sullo stato di applicazione di AIR e VIR nel 2018, di Simona Morettini - IAL Annual Conference: analisi della crisi di fiducia nella legge e nella regolazione, di Rossana Amoroso - Recensione. Chi partecipa alle consultazioni delle Agenzie europee? I fattori che influenzano la cattura del regolatore, nella ricerca di Jan Beyers e Sarah Arras, di Carolina Raiola

This paper explores how EU competition law enforcement might be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Each section of this paper reviews how various components of EU competition law are impacted. The paper evaluates the state of play and, where relevant, it makes policy proposals for how competition law might develop. It suggests that the Commission’s state aid policy is unprecedentedly lax but more tightening up might be welcomed to ensure state funds are not misspent. In the field of antitrust it recommends that competition authorities should be watchful of excessive prices and price discrimination, using interim measures more boldly. Collusion should remain an enforcement priority but a procedural pathway to review agreements that may be in the public interest is proposed, drawing on practices developed in the US in the aftermath of major natural disasters. In merger control, the Commission’s strict interpretation of the failing firm defense is appropriate but, in general, a more skeptical attitude towards mergers may be warranted during this period. Advocacy plays a key role: competition agencies can both point to existing regulations that limit competition and monitor proposed emergency legislation that would harm competition for no good reason.

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COVID-19 represents not only one of the greatest natural and economic disasters in human history, but also a rich case study of government’s emergency response. As such, it is a test bed for risk research and regulatory theories in a world increasingly shaped by transboundary, uncertain manufactured and natural risks. While it is obviously too early to come to definitive conclusions, the contributions collected – in record-time – in this special issue of the European Journal of Risk Regulation attempt at providing an initial analysis of the surprisingly uncoordinated, at times unscientific, response to an essentially foreseeable event like a novel coronavirus (nCoV) in a geopolitically shattered world.

Complex machine learning models derived from personal data are increasingly used in making decisions important to peoples’ lives. These automated decision tools are controversial, in part because their operation is difficult for humans to grasp or explain. While scholars and policymakers have begun grappling with these explainability concerns, the debate has focused on explanations to decision subjects. This Essay argues that explainability has equally important normative and practical ramifications for decision-system design. Automated decision tools are particularly attractive when decisionmaking responsibility is delegated and distributed across multiple actors to handle large numbers of cases. Such decision systems depend on explanatory flows among those responsible for setting goals, developing decision criteria, and applying those criteria to particular cases. Inscrutable automated decision tools can disrupt all of these flows. This Essay focuses on explanation’s role in decision-criteria development, which it analogizes to rulemaking. It analyzes whether, and how, decision tool inscrutability undermines the traditional functions of explanation in rulemaking. It concludes that providing information about the many aspects of decision tool design, function, and use that can be explained can perform many of those traditional functions. Nonetheless, the technical inscrutability of machine learning models has significant ramifications for some decision contexts. Decision tool inscrutability makes it harder, for example, to assess whether decision criteria will generalize to unusual cases or new situations and heightens communication and coordination barriers between data scientists and subject matter experts. The Essay concludes with some suggested approaches for facilitating explanatory flows for decision-system design.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life has recently published (February 2020) a review on ‘Artificial Intelligence and Public Standards’. Chaired by Lord Evans of Weardale KCB DL, the report takes a thorough look at the use of AI in public service through the framework of the Nolan Principles (Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honestly, and Leadership). This paper briefly comments upon and analyses selections form the publication by surveying the recommendations.