Market Power in Transition: Antitrust in the Age of Digital and AI-Driven Markets
Market Power in Transition: Antitrust in the Age of Digital and AI-Driven Markets
Friday, February 6, 2026 | Marriott Marquis
The Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy at Columbia University is pleased to host a one-day conference bringing together leading scholars, enforcers, policymakers, and practitioners to examine the implications of digital platforms, AI-driven markets, and evolving forms of market power for antitrust and competition policy.
The program is organized around four interrelated themes reflected across the panels: the role of data, compute, and digital infrastructure in shaping competitive dynamics; the application of antitrust to labor markets; the interaction of state, federal, and international enforcement approaches; and the scope and limits of antitrust in addressing potential harms associated with digital and data-driven markets. Through moderated, cross-disciplinary discussions, the conference aims to assess existing tools, explore areas of debate and uncertainty, and consider how competition law and economic analysis may evolve as markets, technologies, and institutional approaches continue to change.
This event will offer New York CLE credits in the Areas of Professional Practice, Cybersecurity, Privacy and Data Protection, and Ethics.
Organized by Paola Valenti, Columbia Business School and the Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy.
Event Videos
The Future of Money: The Genius Act, Stablecoins, and the Global Expansion of Blockchain-Based Finance
Watch the Event Videos below:
Event Information
The Genius Act has been called the most significant piece of U.S. financial legislation since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
The Act provides a legal and regulatory framework for fiat-backed stablecoin issuance and is expected to spur vastly increased use of these blockchain-based payment tokens in national and international payments. The Genius Act is part of a larger agenda promoted by the Trump administration and aimed at promoting U.S. leadership in digital finance by integrating blockchain-based crypto assets into the "traditional" financial services system.
The Richman Center hosted two panels of crypto and payments industry leaders, venture capitalists, crypto law specialists, banking analysts, consumer and market advocates, academics and experts from the Federal Reserve and the Bank for International Settlement to discuss what the Genius Act does and doesn't do and why stablecoins matter for banks, the payments industry, crypto finance companies, Treasury markets and U.S. and global financial stability.
The event was moderated by Todd H. Baker, Senior Fellow at the Richman Center for Business, Law & Public Policy, and Professor Jeff Gordon, Richard Paul Richman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School.
Participants included:
- Josh Boehm, Partner, Paul Hastings
- Ben Isaacson, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy, The Clearing House
- Andrew Dresner, Managing Director, Corporate Strategy, Fifth Third Bank
- Will Peck, Head of Digital Assets, Wisdom Tree
- Alejandra Martinez, Partner, Foundation Capital
- Ebrahim Poonawala, Head of North American Banks Research, BofA Securities
- Amanda Fischer, Policy Director & COO, Better Markets
- Takeshi Shirakami, Deputy Head of Secretariat, BIS
- Michael J. Lee, Financial Research Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
- Kathryn Judge, Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law, Columbia Law School