Rupprecht Podszun, who fills the Chair of Civil Law, German and European Competition Law at Heinrich Heine University, is the new Vice-President of the Academic Society for Competition Law (ASCOLA). ASCOLA is the international association of academics who conduct research in the field of antitrust law. Ascola has more than 400 members from all over the world. The election took place during the 14th ASCOLA Annual Meeting in Aix-en-Provence. Podszun is thus part of ASCOLA's three-member "Steering Committee", with Prof Michal Gal (Haifa) as President and Prof Peter Picht (Zurich) as Treasurer (photo). The previous Vice-President Heike Schweitzer (HU Berlin) had stepped down.

At the conference in Southern France, the community of competition law researchers dealt – in a blazing heat – mainly with issues from the digital economy, political aspects of antitrust law and the interaction of competition law with other areas of law such as privacy or consumer protection.