Digital integration: Where data strategy meets antitrust

As data becomes an increasingly valuable business asset, organizations must navigate the growing intersection between data strategy and antitrust and competition law. In this episode of The Data Chronicles, Scott Loughlin sits down with Hogan Lovells Cadwalader counsel Bilal Sayyed, who advises a variety of clients on antitrust and competition matters, to explore how competition authorities are thinking about data in a digital economy where access to information can shape market outcomes.

They discuss when companies can limit access to data, why control of a valuable dataset does not necessarily create market power, and how regulators evaluate issues such as interoperability, exclusivity arrangements, and platform design. The conversation also examines how antitrust authorities assess mergers involving data assets, including whether combining datasets or acquiring critical data suppliers could affect innovation, competition, and future market entry.

Ultimately, Scott and Bilal highlight that antitrust questions are rarely about data alone. Instead, these questions tend to focus on whether companies are competing by building better products and creating value for customers or using control over data to make it more challenging for rivals. As regulators continue to scrutinize digital markets and AI-driven businesses, organizations must understand how their data strategies fit within an evolving regulatory and competition landscape.