Firms use pricing algorithms to make pricing recommendations, including responding to competitors.  They have many innocuous or pro-competitive uses. Recent court cases and economic studies have raised concerns that firms may use common algorithms that result in price fixing, that algorithms have become increasingly powerful tools for tacit collusion, or they can facilitate anticompetitive practices. Whether they are procompetitive or anticompetitive, pricing algorithms can be powered by increasingly capable artificial intelligence.

This event is organized by BRG’s Digital Economy and Platform Markets Practice.

Dr. Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz is a managing director at BRG based in New York and Miami. She has over two decades of experience specializing in antitrust, securities, and financial regulation, including work in consulting and banking, as well as in government.

Her main areas of specialization are econometrics and statistics, industrial organization, and monetary and financial economics. Dr. Abrantes-Metz has a particular expertise involving the intersection between alleged market manipulations and competition issues, including alleged coordinated conduct such as collusion and exchanges of information, as well as the economics of multisided platforms. She pioneered the development and application of empirical screens to detect potential collusion, manipulation, and fraud. She has used empirical screens to uncover the rigging of LIBOR and other financial benchmarks. She has advised multiple agencies across five continents on their adoption of these screens, which are now commonly used worldwide.

Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.

In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.

To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.

2022 recipient of Global Competition Review’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Deb has served as a trusted advisor to firms for over 40 years on strategic transactions, civil and criminal investigations and litigation. In addition to her years of private practice, she has served in key government enforcement and policy roles, including as Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Justice Department; Chair of the Antitrust Modernization Commission, a bi-partisan blue ribbon commission created by Congress to advise Congress and the President on the state of U.S. antitrust enforcement; and as co-chair of the International Competition Policy Expert Group. Ms. Garza chaired the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association during its 2018-19 year and served in the leadership of that organization and the Federalist Society Corporations, Securities and Antitrust Practice Group for many years. She is currently a member of the Uniform Commercial Code Antitrust Study Committee.