Viktoria Robertson - Data Science vs. Cartel Agreements

How can digital technologies help us to detect illegal price fixing? Viktoria Robertson, Head of the Competition Law and Digitalization Group at WU Vienna, looks at this question in her research, working at the intersection of law and data science.

If you go online today looking to buy a new washing machine, you'll find an almost endless choice of products. Fortunately, there are price comparison portals that can help you cut through the thicket: These sites provide a quick and easy way of finding the best price for the model you want. But what if you find that all retailers are charging exactly the same price for a particular washing machine? It could just be a coincidence – but it might also be an indication of illegal price-fixing.

In order for competition authorities to take action against such price-fixing agreements, however, the authorities need to prove that illegal practice exists in the first place. In her research, Viktoria Robertson, a professor of commercial law, competition law, and digitalization at WU, investigates new methods to do just that – with the help of data science. Data publicly available on the internet – for example on price comparison sites – can be used to detect suspicious pricing practices. This new branch of competition law has been dubbed computational antitrust. First studies exploring this new avenue of research have produced promising results – but a lot of research is still needed to unlock the potential of computational antitrust for actual antitrust proceedings.

In the latest episode of Meet Our Researchers, Viktoria Robertson outlines the state of research in this new discipline, where she is conducting cutting-edge research. After filming, we met her in her office to learn more about her research, her fascination with competition law, and her favorite places on Campus WU.