Top of the Agenda

This latest episode of Top of the Agenda, recorded in front of a live audience at Oxera’s new London office, explores how the investment needed to meet global commitments to safe water and sanitation can be encouraged and secured.

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6) commits the world to universal access to safely managed water and sanitation. However, a decade on 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water, 3.4 billion lack safely managed sanitation and only 56% of global domestic wastewater is safely treated.

To address this global challenge, Oxera has partnered with the UK Host Country Committee for the International Water Association (IWA) World Water Congress and Exhibition to develop Bridging the Water Investment Gap: A Framework for Delivering UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, better known as the Glasgow Framework. This new practical framework is designed to support governments, investors and water sector leaders in overcoming the systemic barriers that continue to constrain investment in water infrastructure and services.

Helen Jenkins is joined by the people behind the Glasgow Framework: Peter Simpson, Co-President of the IWA Congress, Alex Plant, Chief Executive of Scottish Water and Co-President of the IWA Congress, and Oxera experts Chris Davis and Georgia Davies. Together, they discuss how the Glasgow Framework could help unlock billions in investment to strengthen global water security.

Who benefits from AI's economic value?

Much of the discussion around AI focuses on the tasks the technology is replacing. But arguably just as important are the economic questions about competitive advantage: who is capturing the gains, and how widely are they being shared?

In this episode of Top of the Agenda, Helen Jenkins is joined by Oxera Partners Dave Jevons and Sebastian Wernicke to explore how AI is changing the structure of firms and markets, who is capturing those productivity gains, whether the benefits are distributed broadly across the economy, and ultimately, who benefits from AI?

This special edition of Top of the Agenda was recorded at our 2026 Brussels conference, which hosted senior figures from the European Commission, national competition authorities, academics and the legal community to discuss one of the most significant developments in EU competition policy in two decades: the revision of the EC Merger Guidelines.

This episode covers three main themes that came out of the conference conversations: what adopting a more dynamic assessment really means in practice; the new approach to efficiencies and why the guidelines are now encouraging merging parties to change their behaviour, not just their paperwork; and the role of competition enforcement in a world where European competitiveness, scale, and innovation have become more urgent political priorities.

Francesca Sala, Oxera Partner, presents extracts from speakers at the event including: Linsey McCallum, Deputy Director General of DG COMP; Emanuele Tarantino, DG COMP's Chief Economist; Daniele Calisti, the Head of Merger Policy at DG COMP; Anna Lyle-Smythe, Partner at Slaughter and May; Volker Nocke, Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim; Griet Jans, Chief Economist of the Belgian Competition Authority; Martijn Snoep, Chairman of the Dutch Competition Authority; and Thibaud Vergé, Vice President of France's Autorité de la concurrence.

In this episode of Top of the Agenda, Helen Jenkins sits down with Sir Philip Lowe, who spent over 40 years at the European Commission, to reflect on his career.

 

From his early work in the 1970s responding to the decline of industries such as coal and steel, Sir Philip’s career spans regional and rural development, building the single market, merger policy reform, European energy infrastructure, competition enforcement, and international trade negotiations.

 

Together, they explore how innovative policy can and has shaped positive, long-term outcomes for European markets and the people they serve.

The conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran, which has disrupted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, has caused major disruption in global oil and gas supplies, triggering complex economic consequences across industries and markets far beyond the energy sector.

 

In this episode of Top of the Agenda, Helen Jenkins is joined by Bill Farren-Price, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Gas Research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, and Jostein Kristensen, Senior Advisor in Oxera’s Energy Practice. Together they discuss the impact of the global energy supply crisis on Europe and explore what we can expect in the short and long term.

The European Commission's draft merger guidelines are one of the most important ongoing debates in European policy. Nearly two decades have passed since the guidelines were last reviewed, and the new draft draws upon years of practice and precedent, reassessing core concerns around market power and consumer harm in today's digitalised, networked economy, where innovation is central to sustainable growth.

In this episode of Top of the Agenda, Helen Jenkins is joined by Guillaume Loriot, Deputy Director-General for Mergers at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition, and Massimo Motta, Research Professor of Economics at ICREA, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), and the Barcelona School of Economics. Together they discuss the draft guidelines and how greater emphasis might be placed on innovation, resilience, investment incentives, industrial scale, and Europe's global competitiveness, all alongside the core aim of merger control: protecting the long-term interests of consumers.

In this special edition of Top of the Agenda, we’re diving into the UK water sector to explore the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) final determinations: the PR 24 Redetermination process.

 

In England and Wales, the amount consumers pay for their water is regulated by the Office of Water Regulation (Ofwat). Five water companies: Anglian, Northumbrian, South East, Southern and Wessex disputed the price control decisions made by Ofwat in December 2024 and exercised their statutory right to ask the CMA to reconsider. The CMA has now delivered its verdict.

 

Helen Jenkins is joined by four members of Oxera's water team—Partner Christopher Davis and Managing Consultants Charles Blake, Daniel Brown, and Joseph Duffy—to unpack what the CMA decided, why it matters to UK households, and what it signals for the future of water regulation.

Behavioural economics is all around us — from competition rulings, like the Google Search ruling in the US, to EU regulations targeting online dark patterns. It affects how we combat consumer manipulation, design policy, and even understand the behaviour of music fans.

In this latest episode, Helen Jenkins is joined by Hélène Bourguignon, Oxera Partner, to share the highlights of a recent event hosted by Oxera in Paris on behavioural economics and its implications for competition and regulation. The internationally renowned speakers explored how people make decisions — and what this means for business and policy.

Sport is big business. Around a quarter of global spending on TV content is focused on sports rights acquisitions, rising from 38 billion USD in 2018 to 64 billion USD in 2025. Also on the rise are questions as to whether the right rules are in place to ensure that the competitions fans follow are fairly constituted.

In the latest episode of Top of the Agenda, Helen Jenkins is joined by Timo Klein, Managing Consultant at Oxera and Assistant Professor in Competition Economics at Utrecht University, and Christopher Davis, Partner at Oxera. Together, they explore how market rules, competition law, dispute resolution, and sports regulations shape the business of sport. They also discuss how economic principles designed to ensure fair markets translate into fair play, and where the biggest challenges lie today.

In the third and final episode demystifying private equity, we explore the world of venture capital. While venture capital has delivered exceptional returns for some investors and founders, it’s also very high risk. So, is vibrant venture capital essential for economies seeking to boost innovation and drive productive growth?

In this episode of Top of the Agenda, Dr Helen Jenkins is joined by Tim Jenkinson, Oxera Partner and Professor of Finance at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, and Francis Woolley, Senior Consultant at Oxera. Together, they unpack what venture capital is, how it works, and the life cycle of venture capital investments.