Digital Platforms Competition Law And Regulation

This open access book offers a comparative and inter-disciplinary perspective on the unique competition law challenges presented by the converged digital markets. Following the digitalisation of even the most traditional bricks-and-mortar sectors of the economy, a well-functioning internal market can only be guaranteed by ensuring the competitiveness of the digital markets. What role do intellectual property law and competition law play in this digital world? How can a more economic analysis strengthen innovation policies to achieve a truly competitive digital single market? The book provides a rigorous discussion of the many reasons why the regulatory responses, not just in Europe but in other jurisdictions too, may fall short. It addresses an array of procedural, substantive and other issues that are generating intense debate across the antitrust community. This includes the scope and objectives of digital regulation, whether the application of ex-ante rules would result in fragmentation and inconsistencies, and whether such regulatory regimes are an appropriate tool for substantive assessment. The book explores whether the application of these rules would effectively tackle the competition enforcement challenges seen under the competition laws, whether they can be applied without undermining other rights such as privacy, and whether they are appropriate for this digital age as well as the new digital era ahead of us. Part 1 offers a detailed inter-disciplinary perspective on the most recent legislative solutions in the European Union, namely, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and the Data Act. Part 2 offers competition and regulatory responses to these ever-emerging digital challenges by the UK, Latin American, Indian and Chinese regulators. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Across the world, regulators and policy makers are grappling with how to establish a competitive, safe and fair online environment that also safeguards users’ fundamental rights as citizens. Ahead of the European Commission’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), this book “Digital markets and online platforms: new perspectives on regulation and competition law“, presents CERRE’s latest contribution to the debate with concrete policy recommendations. Together, the policy recommendations in this book present a roadmap that should be pursued for EU policy makers to safeguard competition and innovation in digital platform markets. They can be organised into three key areas for action: (i) More effective enforcement, (ii) increased transparency and switching easiness, and (iii) providing access to key innovation capabilities. “The need to safeguard fair and vibrant competition, which is also seen as an important driving factor for innovation, is nothing new for policy makers. However, the characteristics and complexities of digital markets have challenged some of the traditional approaches.” – Jan Krämer, editor of the book and CERRE Academic Co-Director The book’s recommendations highlight that platform transparency and associated data collection by authorities, as well as data sharing by platforms (initiated through consumers or authorities), are the two most important overarching policy measures for platform markets in the near future. They facilitate enforcement, consumer choice, and innovation capabilities in the digital economy. The contents of this book were presented and debated during a CERRE live debate with guest speakers Anne Yvrande-Billon (Arcep’s Director of Economic, Market and Digital Affairs), MEP Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Vice-President of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs) and Javier Espinoza (Financial Times’ EU Correspondent covering competition and digital policy).

Across the world, regulators and policy makers are grappling with how to establish a competitive, safe and fair online environment that also safeguards users' fundamental rights as citizens. Ahead of the European Commission's Digital Markets Act (DMA), this book “Digital markets and online platforms: new perspectives on regulation and competition law“, presents CERRE's latest contribution to the debate with concrete policy recommendations. Together, the policy recommendations in this book present a roadmap that should be pursued for EU policy makers to safeguard competition and innovation in digital platform markets. They can be organised into three key areas for action: (i) More effective enforcement, (ii) increased transparency and switching easiness, and (iii) providing access to key innovation capabilities.

The digital economy is gradually gaining traction through a variety of recent technological developments, including the introduction of the Internet of things, artificial intelligence and markets for data. This innovative book contains contributions from leading competition law scholars who map out and investigate the anti-competitive effects that are developing in the digital economy.

All are agreed that the digital economy contributes to a dynamic evolution of markets and competition. Nonetheless, concerns are increasingly raised about the market dominance of a few key players. Because these companies hold the power to drive rivals out of business, regulators have begun to seek scope for competition enforcement in cases where companies claim that withholding data is needed to satisfy customers and cut costs. This book is the first focus on how competition law enforcement tools can be applied to refusals of dominant firms to give access data on online platforms such as search engines, social networks, and e-commerce platforms – commonly referred to as the ‘gatekeepers’ of the Internet. The question arises whether the denial of a dominant firm to grant competitors access to its data could constitute a ‘refusal to deal’ and lead to competition law liability under the so-called ‘essential facilities doctrine', according to which firms need access to shared knowledge in order to be able to compete. A possible duty to share data with rivals also brings to the forefront the interaction of competition law with data protection legislation considering that the required information may include personal data of individuals. Building on the refusal to deal concept, and using a multidisciplinary approach, the analysis covers such issues and topics as the following: – data portability; – interoperability; – data as a competitive advantage or entry barrier in digital markets; – market definition and dominance with respect to data; – disruptive versus sustaining innovation; – role of intellectual property regimes; – economic trade-off in essential facilities cases; – relationship of competition enforcement with data protection law and – data-related competition concerns in merger cases. The author draws on a wealth of relevant material, including EU and US decision-making practice, case law, and policy documents, as well as economic and empirical literature on the link between competition and innovation. The book concludes with a proposed framework for the application of the essential facilities doctrine to potential forms of abuse of dominance relating to data. In addition, it makes suggestions as to how data protection interests can be integrated into competition policy. An invaluable contribution to ongoing academic and policy discussions about how data-related competition concerns should be addressed under competition law, the analysis clearly demonstrates how existing competition tools for market definition and assessment of dominance can be applied to online platforms. It will be of immeasurable value to the many jurists, business persons, and academics concerned with this very timely subject.

In this timely book, Beata Mäihäniemi analyses and evaluates how the characteristics of information as a good, as well as the characteristics of digital platforms, affect the application of competition law in both theory and practice.

The digital economy, broadly defined as the economy operating on the basis of interconnectivity between people and businesses, has gradually spread over the world. Although a global phenomenon, the digital economy plays out in local economic, political, and regulatory contexts. The problems thus created by the digital economy may be approached differently depending on the context. This edited collection brings together leading scholars based in Asia to detail how their respective jurisdictions respond to the competition law problems evolving out of the deployment of the digital economy. This book is timely, because it will show to what extent new competition law regimes or those with a history of lax enforcement can respond to these new developments in the economy. Academics in law and business strategies with an interest in competition law, both in Asia and more broadly, will find the insights in this edited collection invaluable. Further, this volume will be a key resource for scholars, practitioners and students.

‘Digital competition’, a term and concept that has risen to the forefront of competition law, may be viewed as both promising and cautionary: on the one hand, it brings the promises of increased speed, efficiency and objectivity, and, on the other, it entails potential pitfalls such as hard-to-identify pathways to unfair pricing, dominant positions and their potential abuse, restriction of choice and abuse of personal data. Accordingly, jurisdictions around the world are taking measures to deal with the phenomenon. In this concise but thoroughly researched book – both informative and practical – lawyers from two prominent firms with specialised digital competition teams take stock and examine the state of digital competition in the enforcement practices of six competition authorities in Europe, most of these forerunners in the field of digital competition policy and enforcement. The competition authorities surveyed are those of the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. For each, an overview, spanning the period from 2012 to mid-2022 but including as many landmark cases as possible up to and including December 2022, includes not only landmark cases in which digital technologies have had a significant impact on the competition law outcome but also guidance documents such as speeches, policy statements, industry surveys and research reports. Activities and enforcement practices of the various authorities include the following and more: degree of activity; focus of the activity; enforcement styles; enforcement instruments; visible effectiveness of enforcement; and important insights and outlooks. Each overview contains separate chapters on cartel prohibition, the prohibition of abuse of a dominant position and merger control. Additional chapters – partially written by guest authors (who are all without a doubt true thought leaders: Tristan Byrne, Giuseppe Colangelo, Ai Deng, Teodora Groza, Daniel Mândrescu, Wolf Sauter, Thibault Schrépel, and Gareth Shier) – evaluate the similarities and differences in the enforcement practices and the positive and negative effects of digital competition in the jurisdictions investigated, the economic context, the most important game changers, and a concluding chapter offers recommendations. An indispensable guide to quickly and accessibly acquiring in-depth knowledge of competition law in the digital sector, this matchless volume is a must-read for any practitioner or academic who encounters competition law related to digital markets. The dilemmas and challenges of the new competition law reality – which is here already, like it or not – are clearly explained here for the benefit of regulators, academics, policymakers, judges, in-house counsel and lawyers specialising in competition law and intellectual property law.