Market And Competition Authorities

The rules regulating behaviour of market and competition authorities are equally important for the work of these authorities as regulation itself. This book discusses the behavioural elements involved when applying regulation, and evaluates the success and failures of the processes used against fundamental agency principles.

With the rise of digital platforms and the natural tendency of markets involving platforms to become concentrated, competition authorities and courts are more frequently in a position to investigate and decide merger and abuse cases that involve platforms. This report provides guidance on how to define markets and on how to assess market power when dealing with two-sided platforms. DEFINITION Competition authorities and courts are well advised to uniformly use a multi-markets approach when defining markets in the context of two-sided platforms. The multi-markets approach is the more flexible instrument compared to the competing single-market approach that defines a single market for both sides of a platform, as the former naturally accounts for different substitution possibilities by the user groups on the two sides of the platform. While one might think of conditions under which a single-market approach could be feasible, the necessary conditions are so severe that it would only be applicable under rare circumstances. To fully appreciate business activities in platform markets from a competition law point of view, and to do justice to competition law’s purpose, which is to protect consumer welfare, the legal concept of a “market” should not be interpreted as requiring a price to be paid by one party to the other. It is not sufficient to consider the activities on the “unpaid side” of the platform only indirectly by way of including them in the competition law analysis of the “paid side” of the platform. Such an approach would exclude certain activities and ensuing positive or negative effects on consumer welfare altogether from the radar of competition law. Instead, competition practice should recognize straightforwardly that there can be “markets” for products offered free of charge, i.e. without monetary consideration by those who receive the product. ASSESSMENT The application of competition law often requires an assessment of market power. Using market shares as indicators of market power, in addition to all the difficulties in standard markets, raises further issues for two-sided platforms. When calculating revenue shares, the only reasonable option is to use the sum of revenues on all sides of the platform. Then, such shares should not be interpreted as market shares as they are aggregated over two interdependent markets. Large revenue shares appear to be a meaningful indicator of market power if all undertakings under consideration serve the same sides. However, they are often not meaningful if undertakings active in the relevant markets follow different business models. Given potentially strong cross-group external effects, market shares are less apt in the context of two-sided platforms to indicate market power (or the lack of it). Barriers to entry are at the core of persistent market power and, thus, the entrenchment of incumbent platforms. They deserve careful examination by competition authorities. Barriers to entry may arise due to users’ coordination failure in the presence of network effect. On two-sided platforms, users on both sides of the market have to coordinate their expectations. Barriers to entry are more likely to be present if an industry does not attract new users and if it does not undergo major technological change. Switching costs and network effects may go hand in hand: consumer switching costs sometimes depend on the number of platform users and, in this case, barriers to entry from consumer switching costs increase with platform size. Since market power is related to barriers to entry, the absence of entry attempts may be seen as an indication of market power. However, entry threats may arise from firms offering quite different services, as long as they provide a new home for users’ attention and needs.

This open access book provides answers to key open questions concerning competition policy in emerging economies, with a focus on South Eastern Europe. The contributions address two major issues. One is the design of competition policy and the national competition authorities that enforce it, including the topics of competition advocacy and state aid control; the other is the use of economic methods in competition law enforcement, especially in the cases of relevant market definition and merger control. Many lessons learned in the countries of South Eastern Europe can be applied to the emerging markets of other regions. As such, the findings presented here will be highly relevant for officials and staff at national competition authorities, advisers to legislators shaping national competition policy, competition law professionals, and university students alike.

The maintenance of a fair, competitive market among member states is critical to the functioning of the EU economy. In this book, the first comprehensive, unifying view of market definition, Miguel Ferro adeptly explores the different economic-legal issues that arise in EU competition law.

A prohibition of the abuse of dominance is an essential provision in any country's competition law. The purpose of such a prohibition is to protect competition where it is potentially weakened by the presence of dominant market players. If applied immoderately, however, this prohibition is liable to seriously harm competition rather than protect it. In this useful compilation, local practitioners and academics in twelve countries provide a detailed summary and analysis of the application of their countries' law in this area, drawing on the experience of national competition authorities in dealing with market dominance as well as a wide range of legislation, administrative regulations, and case law. Nine EU member states are covered, as are Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Although contributors were specifically asked not to compare their national provisions with Article 82 EC, the book nevertheless provides useful insight on that article, as well. National "borderline cases", of the kind described here, help to clarify the application of Article 82 EC, especially considering that the case law on this provision is often controversial. Dealing with Dominance is a useful reference tool for the application of the national counterparts to Article 82 EC in Europe and beyond and answers a basic practical need of both national and international competition law practitioners. This book can also be seen as an especially important contribution to the comparative analysis of an increasingly crucial area of economic law.

The book is warmly recommended to practitioners and academics from both the legal and the economic field. Guido Westkamp, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice . . . Glader offers strong commentary and case explanation, coupled with insightful analysis, in this complex area. . . This book is strong on both the relevant law, and the economics arena in which the law must be applied, and deals equally well with the US and EC principles and practice. Mark Furse, European Competition Law Review The pace and scope of technological change is increasing, but some innovative technologies take years before they give rise to saleable products. Before they do, there is competition in ideas and research, but the ideas cannot be market tested, because there are no products or services to offer to consumers. Competition law, in Europe and the USA, cannot be applied to competition in research for innovation as if it was competition between products. Completely different problems arise and a completely different approach is needed. This book, the first on innovation markets, shows how this new approach has been used by competition authorities on both sides of the Atlantic in a wide variety of cases. It analyses in depth and detail the comparative law and economics of the problems arising from the different stages of these markets . It considers how far conclusions can be drawn about the future and comes to interesting, practical and sensible conclusions. And it avoids both unjustified scepticism and exaggerated enthusiasm about the theories of innovation markets. John Temple Lang, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Brussels and London; Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and Oxford University, UK This book examines the legal standards and their underlying economic rationale for the protection of competition in the innovation process, in both European competition law and American antitrust law. Apart from relevant regulatory frameworks, the author also reviews a range of case laws, which assess whether a transaction or unilateral conduct would limit market participants incentives and abilities for continued innovation and future competition. At the centre of this study is the innovation market concept. This concept entails the delineation, for purposes of antitrust analysis, of an upstream market for competing R&D. Questions of market definition, the assessment of innovation competition in defined markets, the role of efficiencies in the appraisal of transactions and possible remedies to alleviate anti-competitive effects are also explored. Updating the field of research in light of new developments and broadening and deepening the categorization and analysis of the innovation market area, this book will be of great interest to academics, practitioners and consultants, and also public policymakers.

A nuanced assessment of the relationship between competition law and economic regulation, focusing on substantive and policy-oriented concerns.

This book explores the relationship between market entry analysis in competition law and the study of the determinants of aggregate investment. Macroeconomic and social characteristics, such as widespread corruption, political instability, and low levels of education are associated with lower investment rates. Progress on these indicators on the other hand is also strongly associated with sustained growth and higher investment rates. This book analyzes the interaction between these macro variables and the market-specific analysis typical in antitrust cases. Against this background, representative decisions of four Latin American competition authorities – México, El Salvador, Colombia, and Chile – on unilateral conduct are analyzed, focusing on market power assessment. The analysis shows that there is little to no explicit or implicit consideration of the impact of the macroeconomic environment on market dynamism and therefore on market power. This book also explores the influence that EU and US competition law have in the standards to prove ease of market entry developed by the Latin American authorities. Although most of the Latin American authorities share a lack of reliance on market forces, which is characteristic of EU competition law, this book argues that market entry analysis still needs to be adjusted to fit the socio-economic context that affects investment within the country and the degree to which each particular market is affected. Finally, the book proposes a framework on how the macro characteristics covered can be incorporated into competition law enforcement.