Professor Konstantinos Stylianou
- Professor in Competition Law (School of Law)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7171-8058Biography
I am a Professor of Competition Law and Regulation – I joined the School in early 2023 from the University of Leeds.
My research and teaching focus on digital markets, blockchain, and high-tech industries in general. I am interested in the nature and function of competition, the choice between competition and regulation, and how markets are organised around new technologies.
I enjoy translating my research into policy and government work and I have been fortunate to have had various opportunities through the years. In 2020, I was appointed to the Lawmaking Commission convened by the Greek government on the modernisation of competition law in Greece, and more recently, I advised the Saudi Arabia government on competitiveness in the domestic fintech market. I have also served as a Special Scientific Advisor to the Hellenic Competition Commission, I have worked with various tech companies including Google and Meta (Facebook), and I have delivered training to judges and government officials in the frame of programmes run by the EU, OECD, and the governments of Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Greece. I also sit on the Advisory Board of the Internet Commission, and on the Academic Advisory Board of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications.
Much of my work is collaborative. Between 2019 and 2023 I was part of the team from Erasmus, Leeds, and Bar-Ilan that won a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence award to study ‘Digital Governance’. During the same time, and together with Stockholm University, I co-developed the only publicly accessible database of European Commission decisions on competition law (db-comp.eu), with funding from ESRC, and based on a research project funded by the Swedish Competition Commission. Over the years, I served as a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University, Brown University, and Delft University, and more recently as a Senior Research Fellow at Loyola University Chicago.
Research publication details appear in the list below. I am currently writing a monograph on Antitrust in the Decentralised Economy to be published by Oxford University Press in 2024. Financial support for research is gratefully acknowledged to have been received over the years from ESRC, EU, the Fulbright Foundation, the Onassis Foundation, the Swedish Network for European Legal Studies, the Swedish Competition Authority, the Koch Foundation, the Hellenic Scholarship Foundation, the Institute for European Education and Culture, the Institute for Humane Studies, Google, Meta, Brown University, and FGV. In 2023, I was shortlisted for the Concurrence writing awards in the ‘General Antitrust’ category for my work on the goals of EU competition law.
Sometimes my work and research is featured in the media, among others in Forbes, Marketwatch (Dow Jones), Business Insider, Channel 4, EuroNews, Coindesk, Cointelegraph, Sputnik News, Heise Online, Huffington Post Brazil, The Conversation and others.
I hold an S.J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, an LL.M. from Harvard University, and an LL.B. and LL.M. from Aristotle University.
Research interests
Most of my work revolves around the intersection of technology and competition law. Industries I have particularly researched include blockchain, telecommunications, and online platforms. I have a broader interest in technology policy and how technology itself is an artefact and how this helps us understand how to regulate it. I also maintain an interest in online platform terms of service and how they affect fundamental rights such as privacy and freedom of expression.
Grants
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), 2023-28: Infrastucture grant - CREATe (Co-Investigator) -- £1.1m
- Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), 2021-22: Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) grant (Principal Investigator) – £13,000
- Facebook, 2020-21: Facebook Research grant on “The Co-Evolution of Facebook’s Content Policies and International Instruments on Freedom of Expression” (Principal Investigator) – $63,000 (FEC: £98,000)
- Swedish Network of European Legal Studies, 2020: Networking grant on “Competition in Fintech Markets” (Principal Investigator) (with Stockholm University) – £20,000
- European Union Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence Award, 2019-22: “Digital Governance” (Co-Investigator) (with Erasmus University Rotterdam and Bari-Ilan University) – €100,000
- Swedish Competition Authority, 2019-20: Research grant on “Goals and Purposes of Competition Law” (Principal Investigator) (with Stockholm University) – £53,000
- Brown University, 2019: Research grant on “Market Power in the Blockchain” (Principal Investigator) – $12,000
- FGV, 2014-15: Research project on “Terms of Service and Human Rights” (Principal Investigator) – $15,000 (plus €5,000 matching funding from Citizentrust)
Supervision
I am open to supervising new Ph.D. students in the areas of my research interests (see above). Prospective students can contact me to discuss their thesis idea, but I expect a minimum of a 10-page proposal identifying key themes and contributions.
Current Ph.D. Students
Gabriel Murghulia (Glasgow) –Automated pricing and abuse of dominance
Ananya Banerjee (Leeds) – VAT in digital markets of developing economies
Teaching
I teach mainly in the areas of competition law (EU, US, UK) and regulatory theory. Additional teaching interests include financial regulation, EU law, privacy law, and intellectual property law.
Additional information
Member of the Advisory Board of the Internet Commission, and of the Academic Advisory Board of the International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA).
External examiner at the London School of Economics and the University of East Anglia.
Member of the editorial boards of World Competition and Ledger.
Member of the Academic Society for Competition Law, and the European Consortium on Political Research.
Public consultations:
- European Commission, DSA Transparency Database of Content Moderation Decisions, July 2023
- UK Competition and Markets Authority, Mobile Ecosystems Market Study, July 2021
- The Law Society, Cryptoassets, DLT and Smart Contracts – UK Jurisdiction Taskforce Consultation, June 2019
- UK Financial Conduct Authority, CP19/3: Guidance on Cryptoassets, March 2019
- European Commission Public Consultation on Shaping Competition Policy in the Era of Digitisation, September 2018
- Brazilian Ministry of Justice Public Consultation on Net Neutrality, February 2015