Recognizing What’s Around the Corner: Merger Control, Capabilities, and the New Nature of Potential Competition

This paper argues for a capabilities-based, forward-looking approach to merger control that reflects the realities of dynamic competition. In fast-evolving sectors, the most significant competitive threats often come not from current rivals but from de novo firms or adjacent firms developing complementary technologies or capabilities. Conventional antitrust tools — rooted in static market shares and product overlaps — fail to detect these latent challengers or assess the innovation potential