Regulatory Consulting at National Economic Research Associates (NERA)

Overview

NERA Economic Consulting is a global firm applying rigorous economics to antitrust, finance, regulation, and intellectual property, with a long-standing brand and international footprint that make it a durable presence in high-stakes disputes and regulatory proceedings. Its AI relevance flows through two of its strongest practices. In Antitrust and Competition, NERA economists give expert testimony on the full spectrum of conduct now being examined in AI markets — anticompetitive agreements, exclusive dealing, tying and bundling, refusals to deal, and information sharing — and advise clients through litigation and regulatory review, including merger analysis and class-certification questions of whether impact and damages can be assessed on a class-wide basis. In Intellectual Property, NERA’s experts lead on the economics of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, working at the intersection of antitrust and IP law — market definition, competitive injury, and damages — which is precisely where AI training-data copyright disputes and standard-essential-patent questions around AI hardware are headed. NERA’s cross-jurisdictional reach also positions it for the EU dimension, including state-aid and subsidy analysis relevant as governments pour public money into AI infrastructure.

AI-Focused Regulatory Work

NERA’s contribution to AI policy is the quiet but decisive work of turning contested economic claims into evidence a tribunal will accept. As AI raises novel competition questions — whether foundation-model providers are foreclosing rivals, whether compute or data access constitutes an essential facility, whether model licensing terms are anticompetitive — NERA’s antitrust economists bring decades of testimony on exactly these categories of single-firm and multi-firm conduct, applying advanced econometric models to quantify the damages associated with alleged anticompetitive behavior. Its IP economists, meanwhile, sit at the center of the copyright reckoning over generative AI: NERA regularly analyzes damages and market effects in copyright and trade-secret disputes and opines on survey evidence, the toolkit courts will lean on as they decide whether and how training on protected works should be compensated. NERA’s European practice adds a further AI-policy angle through its work on the Market Economy Operator Principle, state-aid rules, and the Foreign Subsidies Regulation — frameworks that increasingly matter as the EU, U.S., and other governments subsidize domestic AI capacity and scrutinize foreign-backed AI investment. For a directory reader, NERA is best understood as part of the economic-expert infrastructure that will determine how AI’s hardest competition and IP questions are actually resolved — not in think-tank white papers, but in the damages models and expert reports that decide cases.

Notable AI Policy Work

• Provides expert testimony and analysis on the full range of conduct relevant to AI markets — anticompetitive agreements, exclusive dealing, tying, bundling, refusals to deal, and information sharing — across litigation and regulatory review.
• Leads on the economics of intellectual property (patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets), including the antitrust–IP intersection central to AI training-data copyright and standard-essential-patent disputes.
• Analyzes class-certification questions — whether AI-related impact and damages can be assessed class-wide — and applies advanced econometric models to quantify damages from alleged anticompetitive conduct.
• Advises on EU state-aid and subsidy questions (Market Economy Operator Principle, Foreign Subsidies Regulation) increasingly relevant as governments subsidize AI infrastructure and scrutinize foreign-backed AI investment.
• Conducts and opines on survey evidence in trademark and false-advertising disputes — relevant to AI product claims and consumer-protection matters.

Thought Leadership

1. NERA — Antitrust and Competition
   NERA’s antitrust practice — testimony and econometric analysis across the conduct categories now being tested in AI-market competition cases.
2. NERA — Intellectual Property
   NERA’s IP economics, including the antitrust–IP intersection and damages analysis central to AI training-data copyright disputes.

Clients

Law firms, corporations, and regulators worldwide retaining NERA for economic testimony in antitrust, IP, finance, and regulatory proceedings. Strong international footprint spanning the U.S. and EU; specific engagements confidential.