EU’s clash with Google over ad businesses raises radical prospect of divestiture
23 June 2023 00:00
Duration: 17:33
Google is back in the European Union’s firing line over its ad businesses, with the bloc’s enforcer suggesting that the tech giant’s operations may be anticompetitive. But what’s truly radical about this most recent clash is the remedy that top official Margrethe Vestager is putting on the table: a requirement that Google divest part of its services. A forced breakup of a significant company isn’t how the European Commission usually does business. This time, however,
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Contributors
James Panichi Senior Editor, Asia Pacific
James, an Australian journalist with over 25 years’ experience in print and electronic media, helps to oversee MLex’s coverage of regulatory risk in Asia, with special attention to Australia and New Zealand. In 2016, James was appointed as MLex’s managing editor for continental Europe, overseeing the Brussels bureau’s coverage of EU regulatory affairs and managing a team of 16 journalists in Brussels and Geneva. Previously James worked for the European Voice newspaper, before joining the... Read more
Lewis Crofts Editor-at-Large
Lewis leads MLex's editorial strategy, content direction, quality and development. He has a reputation for breaking stories and providing analysis on complex legal disputes before regulators and courts around the globe. He has also developed MLex's unrivalled coverage of competition policy, litigation, regulation, Brexit and international investigations.A graduate of Oxford University, Lewis worked in academia at the Charles University in Prague prior to becoming a journalist.
Nicholas Hirst Chief Correspondent
Nicholas covers EU merger review and antitrust investigations for Mlex in Brussels. He previously wrote about EU affairs for Politico Europe, European Voice and PaRR. After earning an LLM in European law from the College of Europe in Bruges, he spent a year working in the competition practice of a leading competition law firm in Brussels 2009-10. He graduated in modern European languages from Oxford University in 2006.