OECD examines national security limits in competition enforcement
Competition regulators face growing challenges as economic security becomes a larger policy priority, says OECD.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has published a policy paper examining how national security considerations are increasingly influencing competition enforcement across a growing range of sectors.
The report highlights the impact of geopolitical developments, technological change, and stronger attention to economic security, resilience, and technological capability. National security issues are increasingly intersecting with competition policy in areas such as energy, telecommunications, and advanced technologies.
The paper explores how competition authorities should address these concerns while maintaining their established legal and analytical responsibilities. It argues that security concerns should be assessed by competition authorities only where they can be expressed as competition-relevant effects under established competition law tools.
Concerns that fall outside the analytical remit of competition authorities should instead be assessed by governments or specialised bodies, according to the OECD.
The paper proposes an analytical framework to distinguish between national security concerns that can be examined through competition law and those that require separate institutional assessment.
Drawing on cross-jurisdictional experience, the OECD examines how national security considerations can arise in assessments of competitive constraints, merger control, coordinated conduct, unilateral conduct, and remedy design.
The paper concludes that preserving clear institutional roles, legal predictability, analytical boundaries, and effective enforcement will become increasingly important as national security considerations continue to shape economic policymaking.
Why does it matter?
The paper reflects a growing tension in competition policy: governments increasingly view sectors such as energy, telecommunications, and advanced technologies through a national security lens, but competition authorities still need clear legal boundaries. OECD’s framework aims to prevent competition enforcement from becoming a catch-all tool for broader security or industrial policy concerns, while still allowing authorities to consider security-related issues when they have measurable competition effects.
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