The Pros and Cons of Merger Control
Our annual international Pros and Cons conference, where academics and practitioners meet and discuss critical aspects of competition law and policy will take place in Stockholm on Monday 5 October 2026. Previous conferences, widely attended by enforcers, lawyers and consultants, have been greatly appreciated and we are certain that this year’s event will be no exception.
The Pros and Cons 2026 conference is now open for in-person attendance registration. The theme of the 24th edition of the Pros and Cons conference in 2026 is Merger Control and its links to Competition Policy.
The debate highlights an important strand of the debate on how Europe best can meet the challenges posed by global competition, sluggish productivity growth and insufficient innovation evolves around competition policy and, more specifically, merger control.
Advocates for a more lenient and less strict regime points to the need of a more dynamic approach, where consolidations in sectors with potential to deliver productivity growth and innovation should be encouraged, not restrained.
Opponents of this view usually highlights the role of competition itself as a driver for the very same objectives, and that scale possesses no intrinsic pro-competitive qualities. Rather, whereas scale can improve productivity, it can also enhance competitiveness, but fewer players in the market mean less rivalry and less incentives to outcompete rivals by offering better products and less pressure to produce these at lower costs.
The Pros and Cons 2026 conference will invite alternative perspectives on this debate from prominent scholars, regulators and private practitioners.
A key note address introduces the theme, followed by three panel discussions:
Panel 1: Do mergers drive innovation and productivity growth, or do they stifle competition? Which effect ultimately dominates?
Panel 2: More strict, more lax or just more accurate? Which is the key challenge for merger control?
Panel 3: What makes remedies effective? What can parties and agencies learn from experience?
| Time | Title |
|---|---|
| 8.30 | Registration and Coffee |
| 9.00 | Welcome address by Marie Östman, Director General, Swedish Competition Authority |
| 9.10 | Keynote address John Vickers, Professor, University of Oxford Dynamic effects of mergers: what are they, and how to tell whether they are pro- or anti-competitive? |
| 9.40 | Panel 1: Do mergers drive innovation and productivity growth, or do they stifle competition? Which effect ultimately dominates? Fiona Scott Morton, Professor, Yale University Frank Montag, Partner, Freshfields Tomaso Duso, Professor, DIW Berlin, TU Berlin Otto Toivanen, Professor, Aalto University Moderator: Olli Kauppi, Chief Economist, Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority |
| 10.50 | Coffee |
| 11.15 | Panel 2: More strict, more lax or just more accurate? Which is the key challenge for merger control? Hans Zenger, Head of Unit at the Chief Economist Team of DG Competition Lars-Hendrik Röller, Founder & Chairman, Berlin Global Dialogue, Professor of Economics, ESMT Nicole Calo-Niiranen, Head of antitrust, ABB Jorge Padilla, Chair, Compass Lexecon International Moderator: Thibault Schrepel, Associate Professor, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam |
| 12.30 | Lunch |
| 13.40 | Panel 3: What makes remedies effective? What can parties and agencies learn from experience? Ingrid Vandenborre, Head of European Antitrust/Competition Practice, Skadden Griet Jans, Chief Economist, Belgian Competition Authority Kirsten Edwards-Warren, Founding Partner, Econic Partners Saar Dierckens, Global Head of Legal Competition, Siemens AG Moderator: Magnus F. Reitan, Deputy Director, Department for Food, Retail and Health, Norwegian Competition Authority |
| 14.50 | Concluding remarks |
| 14.55 | Afternoon Coffee (Swedish fika) |
Venue
The conference venue is the Stockholm World Trade Center, (Meeting room: "New York") Klarabergsviadukten 70, Stockholm. See map
Questions
If you have any questions regarding the conference, please do not hesitate to contact the project manager Kajsa Kynbråten (kajsa.kynbraten@kkv.se)
In case of questions regarding your registration or if you would need to cancel, please contact Gabriela Broja (gabriela.broja@kkv.se) administration/logistics.
Registration
The conference is free of charge.
Conference recording
A link to the conference recording will be published on our web site, available at a later date.
The information on the website will continuously be updated.