Category: Publications

The present paper is based on observations I submitted to DG Competition in response to its calls for observations made in the context of its decision to host a conference in Brussels in January 2019 on “Shaping competition policy in the era of digitisation”,1 as well as to the U.K. Digital Competition Expert Panel in response to its open consultation on the effects of digital markets.2 Given the space limitation inherent to these exercises, my observations focused on platforms relying on a two-sided business model with a “free” side and a “monetization” side (i.e., “ad-funded platforms”), such as Google, Facebook or Twitter, and the challenges they create for EU competition policy.3

The GUDP (Grossly Undervalued Domestic Product) results in a black market of domestic work that women are contributing to for absolutely nothing. However, competition authorities may have a role in reducing the GUDP by prioritising those markets in which women supply the biggest share of unpaid work.

This short paper, which takes the form of observations submitted to the European Commission in the context of its decision to host a conference in Brussels in January 2019 on “Shaping competition policy in the era of digitisation”, seeks to make the following points. First, while caution must be taken when analysing digital platform markets, there is no reason to believe that the Commission cannot properly assess such markets and that the risk of type-II errors should necessarily prevent intervention. To the contrary, type-I (under-enforcement) errors may be particularly damaging considering that these platforms not only control access to their own products and services, but also – and this is a critical observation – to third-parties’ products and services given their intermediation functions. Second, while the focus of Commission investigations in digital platform markets has thus been focused on vertical foreclosure, including efforts by digital platforms to extend their market …

Price discrimination is one of the most complex areas of EC competition law. There are several reasons for this. First, the concept of price discrimination covers many different practices (discounts and rebates, tying, selective price cuts, discriminatory input prices set by vertically-integrated operators, etc.) whose objectives and effects on competition significantly differ. From the point of view of competition law analysis, it is thus not easy to classify these practices under a coherent analytical framework. Second, there is a consensus among economists that the welfare effects of the (various categories of) price discrimination are ambiguous. It is hard to say a priori whether a given form of price discrimination increases or decreases welfare. The response to this question may indeed depend on which type of welfare standard (total or consumer) is actually pursued. Moreover, even if one agrees on a given standard, the welfare effects of discriminatory prices generally depend …

Identifying the optimal policy approach for competition authorities to deal with information exchange between competitors is a challenge. The law has made clear that under some circumstances sharing information is deemed anti-competitive, and in other circumstances it will be permitted. However, there remains a significant ‘grey area’, where there are no clear economic or legal rules on how to treat information exchange. This results in significant uncertainty for companies and competition authorities alike. This paper analyses the economic literature in the area of information exchange, and considers both the positive effects on consumer welfare and the anti-competitive effects resulting from collusion. Ideally, competition authorities should implement clearer policy rules based on economic research demonstrating when the benefits of sharing information outweigh the negative effects. However, until economic theory can tell us more about the efficiency gains that can only be …

This short paper summarizes the main findings of a comprehensive study the authors conducted on the way “vertical restraints” adopted by dominant firms (with a focus on exclusive dealing, rebates and discounts and tying) have been treated by enforcement agencies and courts in the European Union (“EU”) and in Brazil. A comparative analysis of the treatment of vertical restraints in these two jurisdictions is particularly interesting for the following reasons. First, the EU competition law system is mature, but the European Commission (the “Commission”)’s approach to vertical restraints has evolved in recent years notably through the Guidance Paper issued in 2008, promoting an effects-based approach to such restraints. The Brazilian competition law system is not as mature as the EU system, but Brazil has established itself as one of the key antitrust players among the fast-growing economies. Although less mature than its EU counterpart, Brazil has adopted an effects-based approach to …

Many of the largest and most successful businesses today rely on providing service at no charge to at least a portion of their users. Free services often delight users, yet also create a series of challenges for competition policy, including impeding entry, inviting overproduction on quality, and increasing the risk of deception and overpayment. This short paper presents these problems, examines the strategies that entrants can attempt when competing with free service, and considers possible regulatory responses.

The United States and the European Union each have a strong legal regime designed both to protect competition and to foster innovation. Because the competition and intellectual property (IP) laws are occasionally in some tension, each jurisdiction has developed detailed legal rules that govern when and how competition law restrictions apply to IP rights. Recognizing that innovation benefits consumers, each regime presumes a patentee may lawfully use, license, and sell its IP rights freely unless that activity would impair competition on the merits by (i) coordinating with other entities to restrain trade unreasonably; (ii) unilaterally acquiring (in the U.S.) or exercising (in the EU) market power; or (iii) transferring IP through an anticompetitive merger or acquisition. This chapter summarizes and briefly compares the applicable law in the U.S. and the EU, and then identifies the most prominent differences between the two regimes. Note that, because most of the applications …