The Dutch government on May 25, 2026, blocked Kyndryl’s planned acquisition of Solvinity over national security concerns. But the real story is not the block; it’s how the Dutch government (and many others) inadvertently created a one-vendor monopoly in critical infrastructure through mundane procurement decisions.
In this episode, we examine the following:
The risk of being locked in by repeated government contracts
Why the usual antitrust tools are useless in these situations
The true trade-off between digital sovereignty and scale
More intelligent market design solutions that can deliver both security and competition
This issue is something that policymakers, tech leaders, antitrust professionals, and anyone else concerned about critical digital infrastructure need to watch.
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