This issue marks the 21st year of a special feature of the Review of Industrial Organization: “Antitrust and Regulatory Update”. As was true in recent years, I asked the Chief Economists of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (DOJ), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the DG Competition of the European Union (DGComp), and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) of the UK to write essays about the interesting aspects of the important antitrust and regulatory issues that confronted their agencies during this past year. I am pleased to report that all five individuals responded affirmatively.

The essays in this issue of the Review – all of them co-authored with career economists at their respective agencies – are thus the products of all five of their affirmative responses.

As has been reflected in previous years’ essays from the competition agencies, mergers (which, of course, include acquisitions) and merger policy continue to be important: Four of the five essays discuss mergers. The DOJ’s essay discusses two proposed mergers that it challenged: Cargotec/Konecranes; and Aon/Willis Towers Watson. The FCC addresses its assessment of Verizon’s acquisition of TracFone Wireless, while the DGComp essay discusses its analysis of the Veolia/Suez merger. And the FTC discusses its challenge to NVIDIA’s proposed acquisition of Arm Ltd., as well as providing a general discussion of hospital mergers and issues of complementarity in the bilateral bargaining between hospitals and health insurers.

The CMA essay discusses that agency’s market studies of two network industries: mobile (wireless) ecosystems (and the market power of Apple and Google within those ecosystems); and the charging market for electrical vehicles. That essay also provides an overview of the CMA’s study of the “State of Competition” for the UK.

The FTC’s essay also addresses the consumer harm from seller deception with respect to lease terms (for merchandise in rent-to-own arrangements) and from the suppression of negative online reviews of products. The FCC’s essay covers recent work on spectrum auctions as well as initiatives to close the connectivity gap and make broadband more affordable for low-income households, and improvements in its broadband data collection. And the DGComp essay discusses its new “vertical block exemption regulation” and new guidelines on vertical restraints, as well as policies that apply to limits on aid by Member States to specific industries and companies – especially in the context of the climate, environmental, and energy fields.

This brief summary cannot, of course, do adequate justice to the interesting analyses and discussions that are to be found in all five essays in this issue; but I hope that I have sufficiently stimulated the curiosity and interest of readers so as to encourage them to read the complete essays. As has been true in past years, RIO readers will find that reading these essays at greater length will be well worth their time.