Big Thoughts at the Antitrust Big Spring Meeting Week

By: Steven Cernak (The Antitrust Attorney)

In this post, author Steven Cernak reflects on his experience as Chair of the ABA Antitrust Section during its recent Spring Meeting, offering an insider’s view shaped by moderating key panels and engaging with international enforcers and practitioners. While he attended fewer sessions than in previous years, he emphasizes that the most important takeaways for antitrust professionals came not just from technical discussions, but from broader conceptual debates—what he calls the “big thoughts” that continue to shape the field.

One such discussion took place during a panel Cernak moderated titled “Have We Been Doing It All Wrong?” featuring Nicolas Petit, Neil Chilson, Diana Moss, and Koren Wong-Ervin. The panel challenged traditional neo-classical economic assumptions that underpin much of antitrust law, suggesting instead that dynamic and complexity economics might better reflect how competition and innovation actually function. Concepts like emergent order and long-term innovation cycles were introduced, with panelists drawing from alternative frameworks, including Austrian economics, to rethink how antitrust enforcement could evolve.

The conversation extended beyond the panel with follow-up discussions hosted by the Dynamic Competition Initiative and BRG, and will continue in an upcoming issue of the Antitrust Law Journal. Cernak highlights three main takeaways for practitioners: Nicolas Petit’s observation that dynamic competition does not apply universally; the suggestion that understanding innovation may require insights from business school-oriented managerial economics; and the idea that embracing these frameworks might lead to either expanded or restrained enforcement…

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