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Considerations of monopsony in merger analysis: The Penguin Random House case Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-08-08 Brianna L Alderman, Roger D Blair
In 2020, Bertelsmann SE & Co., the owner of Penguin Random House (PRH), offered to acquire Simon & Schuster for $2.175 billion. If the merger had been consummated, the newly merged firm would have had a 49 per cent share of the market for publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books. Concerned by the proposed merger, the Department of Justice alleged that a more concentrated sector for publishing
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Competition policy and the consumer welfare standard Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-07-08 John Vickers
This paper, which was given as the 2024 Bellamy Lecture, reviews the law and economics of the consumer welfare standard in competition policy, particularly in relation to mergers and abuse of dominance. With qualifications relating to input markets, the consumer welfare approach is defended against arguments for its relaxation, and against contrary criticisms that it is unduly permissive.
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The evolution of EU competition law and policy in the pharmaceutical sector: long-lasting impacts of a pandemic Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-07-04 Mina Hosseini
This article investigates the evolution of the European Union (EU) competition law and policy enforcement in the pharmaceuticals sector, focusing on the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis as a turning point. Before COVID-19, EU competition authorities’ goals and priorities focused on pay-for-delay agreements between originators and generic pharmaceutical undertakings. During COVID-19
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From silence to vigilance: overcoming barriers in public reporting of bid-rigging and cartel violations Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-05-07 Koki Arai
There are several ways to collect information on violations of antitrust laws, including ex officio detection, reports from the general public, and the use of leniency systems. There have been many discussions on improvements in the use of leniency systems and refining the ex officio detection method by improving the use of data by methods of analysis. However, improvements in public reporting have
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Agency Insights: The first steps of the DMA adventure Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-04-30 Alberto Bacchiega, Thomas Tombal
This piece is a short essay on the first steps of the implementation of the Digital Markets Act. Our paper is divided in three sections. In the first section “Why does the DMA exist?”, we come back on the genesis of the DMA and the complementing role it plays with competition law. In the second section “Challenges of Gatekeeper Designations”, we look back at this first important step in the implementation
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Why do people think price fixing is unfair? An empirical legal study on public attitudes in the USA Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Carlos Delvasto, Ruben Acevedo
The present article advances the understanding of antitrust law by providing theoretical considerations and empirical results of people’s attitudes towards price fixing, specifically within the context of fairness in US antitrust laws. Attitudes were obtained through experimental surveys on Amazon Mechanical Turk in the USA between 2018 and 2021. The empirical results suggest that perceptions of fairness
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A new agenda for antitrust: human rights violations as anti-competitive conduct Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Gustavo H Kastrup
This study aims to establish a connection between human rights violations and unlawful conduct as defined by antitrust laws. To this end, it proposes a systematic teleological interpretation of the Brazilian legal system regarding human rights and competition laws to demonstrate that the Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE) has the authority to address human rights violations when enforcing
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Innovation against change Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Andrew P McLean
There is presently an increased enthusiasm for competition law enforcement around the world, driven primarily by concerns about the power of digital platform companies. Against this background, this article identifies the emergence of a ‘techno-conservatism’ that invokes a ‘rhetoric of innovation’ to stymy the field’s ongoing shift towards a more interventionist paradigm. Drawing parallels between
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Antitrust under the popular economy: the birth of the antitrust law in Brazil Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-20 José Augusto Medeiros
This article analyses the context of the first Brazilian antitrust law, between 1930 and 1945. Its goal is to clarify how the ‘popular economy’—a constitutional and legal concept of the time—functioned as a protective instrument for the internal market. The study explores the hypothesis that the legislation was directed at foreign economic power, already embedded in national economic structures at
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Cartel leniency programme in India—why no race here? Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-11-16 Somashekar T.S., Praveen Tripathi
This article evaluates the implementation of the cartel leniency programme by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) using comprehensive data covering all related decisions of the CCI from 2009 to 2021. All other things remaining the same prima facie discoveries of cartels should have resulted in a ‘shock’ to ex ante expected returns of cartels, thereby encouraging more leniency applications. But
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Cultural challenges to competition law enforcement in Latin America Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-08-10 Julián Peña
The internationalization of competition law in recent decades has been very successful. A very large number of jurisdictions have now adopted competition laws and apply them in marked similarity. And yet, at times, these laws, despite the similarity in wording and theory, lead to substantial differences when enforced. Differences in the meaning attributed to various concepts, to the goals of competition
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The good, the bad, and the ugly of US antitrust Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Maurice E Stucke
This article examines the bad and ugly as the US federal agencies seek to rejuvenate competition. The bad is legislative hiatus to update the antitrust laws for the digital economy. The ugly is when courts push their own economic beliefs, without regard for the congressional intent and aims of the antitrust laws. Regardless of who wins, the rule of law (and those most dependent on the antitrust law)
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Regulating digital platforms: why, how, and why now Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-06-02 Gina Cass-Gottlieb
Like many competition agencies and governments around the world, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has formed the view that ex ante regulation is a necessary complement to address the competition (and consumer) harms posed by digital platforms. Our existing laws are not sufficient to address the anti-competitive conduct and corresponding harms we have observed in relation to digital
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A new regime for below threshold mergers in EU competition law? The Illumina/Grail and Towercast judgments Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-05-20 Jotte Mulder, Wolf Sauter
The Illumina/Grail and Towercast rulings of July 2022 and March 2023 create new avenues for the control of concentrations below the European Union (EU) and national turnover thresholds. These new avenues concern (i) a referral to the European Commission by a national competition authority (NCA) and (ii) a review under the EU provision on abuse of dominance by an NCA. In both cases, the rationale seems
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Competition enforcement versus regulation as market-opening tools: an application to banking and payment systems Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-04-21 Jens-Uwe Franck
This article analyses three routes for the formation of market-opening rules: competition enforcement, legislative rulemaking, and market investigation. Using examples and case studies related to facilitating market access in banking and payment systems, we illustrate essential features and limitations of the different modes of rulemaking. The interrelation between them is explored, emphasizing the
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Spamming the regulator: exploring a new lobbying strategy in EU competition procedures Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-04-18 Marlene Jugl, William A M Pagel, Maria Camilla Garcia Jimenez, Jean Pierre Salendres, Will Lowe, Helena Malikova, Joanna J Bryson
Regulation plays a central role in modern governance; yet, we have limited knowledge of how subjects of regulation—particularly, private actors—act in the face of potentially adverse regulatory decisions. Here, we document and examine a novel lobbying strategy in the context of competition regulation, a strategy that exploits the regulator’s finite administrative capacities. Companies with merger cases
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The antitrust victims of monopsony Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-04-11 Brianna L Alderman, Roger D Blair
The exercise of unlawful monopsony power by buyer cartels depresses both the price paid and the quantity purchased. Consequently, producer surplus and social welfare decline from competitive levels. There are six classes of antitrust victims, but only one has standing to sue for antitrust damages in the United States. The other five are neglected. We identify the neglected victims in this article.
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Lasting change in competition law and policy Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-04-03 Spencer Weber Waller
This is a time of passionate debate on the fundamental goals of competition law. Should there be a single overarching goal for all competition law and policy? Should that goal be framed in purely economic terms? Should antitrust focus on protecting the competitive process, preventing unfair market conduct, or the abuse of superior bargaining position? Should antitrust promote and protect democracy
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Enforcing the Digital Markets Act: institutional choices, compliance, and antitrust Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Jacques Crémer, David Dinielli, Paul Heidhues, Gene Kimmelman, Giorgio Monti, Rupprecht Podszun, Monika Schnitzer, Fiona Scott Morton, Alexandre de Streel
This article discusses how the European Commission can achieve the goal of effectively implementing the Digital Markets Act. Based on legal and economic reasoning, we highlight the important role of the gatekeeper’s compliance report, and discuss how to incentivize gatekeepers to write useful reports. In addition, we develop recommendations regarding the internal organization of the Commission, the
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Global licences under threat of injunctions: FRAND commitments, competition law, and jurisdictional battles Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-02-07 Renato Nazzini
This article examines three, intertwined questions arising from the recent case law on global FRAND licences under threat of injunction. First, whether the obligation of an implementer to enter into a global licence of all the standard-essential patent (SEP) owner’s relevant SEPs on pain of a national injunction is consistent with the policies underpinning a SEP owner’s obligation to grant a FRAND
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Supranational or cooperative? Rethinking the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement Competition Protocol institutional design Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-02-03 Vellah Kedogo Kigwiru
African countries are currently negotiating the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Competition Protocol (CP) to regulate competition in the created continental market. However, the most daunting task for the negotiators and African countries is which institutional design to adopt at the continental level, pitying against a supranational or cooperative institutional model. Drawing from a dearth
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What is fair and efficient in the face of climate change? Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2023-01-14 Martijn Snoep
Competition law shouldn’t stand in the way of genuine colloboration between competitors to reduce negative externalities, like the emission of greenhouse gases. Competition authorities around the world can play a role by giving guidance. in doing so, they should neither stick to orthodoxy not become naïve.
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Restrictions ‘by object’ after Generics, Lundbeck, and Budapest Bank: are we any wiser now? Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-10-12 Stefan Enchelmaier
‘Restrictions “By Object” After Generics, Lundbeck, and Budapest Bank: Are We Any Wiser Now?’ summarizes the CJEU’s jurisprudence on the question when an agreement or a concerted practice between undertakings restricts competition ‘by object’ and when ‘by effect’, Article 101(1) TFEU. It turns out that there are few certainties in this area. Instead, there is a bewildering array of standards for assessing
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The interplay between antitrust law and intellectual property: stages of the European evolution Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-15 Gustavo Ghidini
The interplay is reconstructed in an evolutionary perspective along three main stages. In the first one, Commission focused on IPRs holders’ power of disposition in order to prevent that profiting from the statutory ‘territorial scope’ of national exclusive rights, agreements were enacted partitioning the European market thus frustrating the goal of the Single Market. In the second phase, in order
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An access and transfer right to data—from a competition law perspective Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-13 Björn Lundqvist
While business users face difficulties accessing and porting data on platforms, the Digital Markets Act has been hailed as the legislative tool enabling business users access and transfer the data they have generated on platforms controlled by gatekeepers. The tool provided by the Digital Markets Act is discussed in this article and the author argue that business users should have a more elaborated
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The Application of Competition Law to Labour Markets: Some Unresolved Issues Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-10 Mariateresa Maggiolino
In recent years, many have wondered about the application of antitrust law in labour markets. This article analyses both the theoretical premises that justify such intervention and the ways in which it should occur. In this respect, the article takes steps from the economic literature on monopsony in the attempt to ensure that the logic that antitrust scholars customarily carry out in relation output
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Merger regulation in the digital economy and the forgotten goal of innovation Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-09-08 Hedvig Schmidt
The pursuit of the consumer welfare goal has not achieved competitive markets but instead resulted in highly concentrated markets in the digital economy with one or two market leaders. Markets that should be dynamic and innovative are controlled by powerful online platforms that thwart innovation and eliminate potential rivals through killer acquisitions. This article argues that safeguarding innovation
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Critical Loss in Market Definition: Methods and Court Decisions Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Malcolm B Coate, Shawn W Ulrick, John M Yun
Critical loss analysis is an empirical tool used to define relevant markets in antitrust law. The existence of two different critical loss methodologies, however, complicates its application. Harris and Simons introduced the first approach, which focused on evaluating the market-level effect of a small, but significant and non-transitory increase in price (‘SSNIP’). Later, O’Brien and Wickelgren, along
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The economic case against licensing negotiation groups in the Internet of Things Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-04-14 Jonathan M Barnett
Competition policy generally prohibits coordination among buyers or sellers, especially coordination on price, price-related inputs, and output. In licensing markets for standard-essential patents (SEPs), it has been periodically proposed that this rule should be relaxed to permit licensing negotiation groups (LNGs), which is expected to reduce transaction costs and the purportedly ‘excessive’ royalties
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Ownership-neutral or ownership-blind? The case of Polish state-owned enterprises in EU merger control Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-03-31 Alexandr Svetlicinii
Abstract The article discusses the challenges associated with the assessment of economic concentrations involving state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the European Union (EU) merger control. It reveals inconsistencies in ascertaining the exercise of and the (anti)competitive effects stemming from the state control over the SOEs caused by the strategic use of the ‘single economic unit’ concept in cases
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Potential abuses of dominance by big tech through their use of Big Data and AI Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-02-16 Christophe Samuel Hutchinson
While companies are targeting online shoppers with increased precision thanks to their combined use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, concerns have been expressed among competition law scholars that giant tech companies may use their enhanced market power resulting from their access and control of Big Data and AI to foreclose the market from potential competitors and subsequently charge higher
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Reorienting competition law Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-02-05 Ioannis Lianos
This article explores the impact of increasing complexity, in its political, business and technological dimensions, on enforcing competition law. It particularly tackles the issue of sustainable development and the institutional reforms that need to be undertaken, the emergence of new fields of competition, such as ecosystems, and the challenges of computational competition law and economics.
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Abusive pricing practices by online platforms: a framework review of Article 102 TFEU for future cases Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2022-01-27 Daniel Mandrescu
The challenges involved in the application of Article 102 TFEU to online platforms have become the main topic of debate in the context of EU competition policy in digital markets. This debate has recently also extended to the topic of platform pricing with the complaints about the pricing strategies of Apple with respect to its App Store and it is a matter of time before similar complaints will follow
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The enforcement of cross-border competition law claims in Asia-pacific and choice of forum agreements: private litigation or arbitration? Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Kazuaki Nishioka
A private plaintiff may bring an action against a defendant for the infringement of competition law. In Western countries, it is widely accepted that parties can subject to choice of forum agreements claims seeking private law remedies based on competition law infringements. Accordingly, parties are free to refer those claims to a foreign court or arbitral tribunal for their determination. In contrast
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Even employees are undertakings in the labour market, but granting social rights is not antitrust’s job Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Mariateresa Maggiolino
The lively debate about the right of gig workers to bargain collectively stems from the idea that European Union (EU) competition law treats this group of workers worse than it treats employees. Namely, it is common to argue that employees, unlike gig workers, are permitted to conclude collective agreements because they are not undertakings and, therefore, not subject to EU competition law. In sharp
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Corrigendum to: From Divergence to Convergence: The Role of Intermediaries in Developing Competition Laws in ASEAN Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-12-15 Wendy Ng
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The Court of justice’s judgment in Generics (UK) v Competition and Markets Authority and the object/effect dichotomy Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-10-25 Alison Jones
Over the years since the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community came into force, the EU Courts have regularly been called upon to engage with the ‘dichotomy between restriction of competition by object and restriction by effect’1 set out in what is now Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This series of cases illustrates, as observed by Advocate General
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The European Court of Justice’s Generics (UK) judgment Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-10-24
This issue’s Contemporary Critique discusses the ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Generics (UK) v Competition and Markets Authority. Anticipated as it was, the judgment is something of a milestone in EU antitrust. For one, it marked the first foray by the EU’s apex court into the legal minefield of reverse patent settlements that have, over the past decade, sparked considerable debate
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Considerations of Buyer Power in Merger Review Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-09-30 Tirza J Angerhofer, Roger D Blair
In most horizontal merger reviews, the focus is on the potential for increasing monopoly power, which adversely affects the output market through increased price and reduced quantity, quality, and product variety. For the most part, a merger’s effect on the input markets has been ignored. Recently, however, academics and policymakers have called for considering a merger’s potential for creating or
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Banks v Cryptocurrency exchanges: CADE’s investigation and the search for a villain Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-08-19 de Lima Figueiredo N.
Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, jnab008, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaenfo/jnab008
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From Divergence to Convergence: The Role of Intermediaries in Developing Competition Laws in ASEAN Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-09-08 Wendy Ng
Despite the diversity of contexts and circumstances in which competition laws are developed and exist, many countries have enacted competition laws that are broadly similar. To learn more about the dynamics shaping the development of competition law at the national, regional, and international levels, this article investigates the development of competition law in the Association of Southeast Asian
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Some thoughts about the Intersection between Data Protection and Competition Law: A View from Brazil Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-08-03 Alexandre Cordeiro Macedo
This article presents some thoughts about the relationship between Data Protection and Competition Law—focusing on the implementation of the New Brazilian Data Protection Law (LGPD). The Digital Era, the Digital Economy, and the Data-Driven Market (although they present different definitions, they are all concepts that have a strong connection between their meanings) are significantly changing a variety
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Falling through the cracks no more? Article 102 TFEU and sustainability: the relation between dominance, environmental degradation, and social injustice Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-07-01 Marios C Iacovides, Christos Vrettos
EU competition law has a sustainability gap, particularly when it comes to enforcing Article 102 TFEU as a ‘sword’ to prohibit dominant undertakings’ unsustainable conduct. In this article, we ask whether EU competition law can and should be part of a holistic EU solution to the climate crisis and how it can contribute to ensuring that our social, economic, and ecological systems are not entrenched
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Contemporary Critique The Crypto exchanges probeBanks v Cryptocurrency exchanges: CADE’s investigation and the search for a villain Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-06-03 Natália de Lima Figueiredo
In September 2018, the Brazilian Competition Authority (CADE) opened a preliminary investigation against major banks in Brazil.1 They were accused by the Brazilian Association for Cryptoassets and Blockchain (ABCB) of denying access to cryptocurrency exchanges to the banking system, by arbitrarily closing their bank accounts. In particular, the ABCB submitted that the banks under investigation had
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Following the rules to the wrong path Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-05-13 Paulo Furquim de Azevedo
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Enforcing copyright through antitrust? The strange case of news publishers against digital platforms Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-05-10 Giuseppe Colangelo
The emergence of the multi-sided platform business model has had a profound impact on the news publishing industry. By acting as gatekeepers to news traffic, large online platforms appear to be unavoidable trading partners for news businesses and may exert substantial bargaining power in their dealings. Concerns have been raised that this bargaining power imbalance may threaten the viability of publishers’
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Competition policy during pandemics: how to urgently produce healthcare goods and services while avoiding economic disaster Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-05-08 Nicolo Banks
Pandemics present two emergencies: a war against a pathogen and an economic recession. Historically, the US has been forced to relax its antitrust enforcement policies during its largest wartime mobilizations in order to urgently produce goods and services needed in the war effort. Likewise, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, companies should have been allowed to collaborate with each other and with
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Facebook’s exploitative and exclusionary abuses in the two-sided market for social networks and display advertising Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-04-06 Liza Lodvdahl Gormsen, Jose Tomas Llanos
The German Facebook case has directly addressed the contentious interplay between data protection and competition law for the first time. The Bundeskartellamt’s theory of harm, which directly linked privacy violations to the strengthening of Facebook’s market power, proved controversial: it elicited strong criticism from the appeals court, but then was partially endorsed by the Bundesgerichtshof (German
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The role of economics and the type of legal standards in antitrust enforcement by DGCOMP: an empirical investigation Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-03-27 Katsoulacos Y, Makri G.
In the originally published version of this manuscript, important author amendments were inadvertently omitted prior to publishing. Oxford University Press acknowledges the error and would like to apologize. The errors have now been corrected online.
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Changing the way we think: competition, platforms and ecosystems Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-02-23 Frederic Jenny
Many of the traditional tools used by competition authorities to assess relevant markets or the intensity of competition between firms are difficult to use or inadequate to assess competition issues between ecosystems in the digital world. Further economic thinking and an understanding of the business models of ecosystems are required to allow competition authorities to make informed and relevant decisions
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Ofcom’s record as a competition authority: an assessment of decisions in telecoms Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-02-01 Crocioni P.
ABSTRACTThe instrument of concurrency, whereby UK regulatory authorities share and often, in practice, lead in the application of competition policy, is an important feature of the UK competition law regime. Several studies examined its pros and cons from a theoretical perspective. This is the first article to take a different approach and critically assesses Ofcom’s application of its concurrent competition
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Vertical restraints under Indian Competition Law: whither law and economics Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-01-26 Vikas Kathuria
The correct welfare assessment of vertical agreements in competition law is a difficult craft. The more mature jurisdictions such as the EU and the US have struggled to develop the optimal framework. This article scrutinizes vertical agreements cases of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) that is now 11 years old. The objective is to assist the CCI in strengthening its legal and economic framework
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Grab–Uber merger: challenges faced by a young competition agency Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2021-01-20 Bernabe J.
Grab’s acquisition of Uber’s assets and driver contracts across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, proved to be an early test of the merger review powers of the Philippine Competition Commission (‘PCC’ or the ‘Commission’). Barely two years from its establishment, the Commission not only had to invoke its authority to conduct a motu proprio review of a transaction which the parties involved
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The role of economics and the type of legal standards in antitrust enforcement by DGCOMP: an empirical investigation Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-12-22 Katsoulacos Y, Makri G.
AbstractWe empirically investigate, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, the role of economics in antitrust enforcement by EC’s Competition Authority (DGCOMP), by constructing and measuring indicators capturing the extent and type of economics used in reaching infringement decisions between 1992 and 2016.This allows us to identify the legal standards (LSs) adopted in assessing different
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Big data and competition analysis under Australian competition law: comeback of the structuralist approach? Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-12-21 Balasingham B, Jordan H.
AbstractCompetition assessment in Australia has traditionally been based on an evaluation of the market structure relying on five factors, namely the degree of market concentration, the height of barriers to entry, the extent of product differentiation, the extent of vertical integration, and the nature of arrangements between firms. These factors, known as the ‘QCMA factors’, are characteristic of
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The volume effect in cartel cases—a special challenge for damage quantification? Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-12-09 Weber F.
AbstractCartel damage occurs in many different shapes. Actors that are beyond doubt heavily affected by a cartel agreement are the purchasers of the cartel—the direct same as the indirect ones. Economic insights teach us that they do not only suffer damage in the form of the overcharge they paid or of shares of this overcharge that are passed-on to lower levels in the supply chain, but also in the
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Super platforms, big data, and competition law: the Japanese approach in contrast with the USA and EU Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-12-03 Takigawa T.
ABSTRACTThis article examines antitrust issues concerning digital platforms equipped with big data. Recent initiatives by the Japanese competition agency are highlighted, comparing them with those by the USA and EU competition authorities. First examined is whether competition among platforms would result in a select few super platforms with market power, concluding that AI with machine learning has
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Platforms as regulators Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-12-03 Dunne N.
AbstractThe proposition that certain digital platforms act as ‘regulators’ within their own business models is a key pillar of the European Commission report on Competition Policy for the Digital Era, and the basis upon which its authors build a wide-ranging duty for dominant platforms to secure competition that is ‘fair, unbiased and pro-users’. This article seeks to shed light on this novel contention
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Grab–Uber merger in Southeast Asia: the Singapore approach Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-12-03 Healey D.
The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) issued an infringement decision in October 2018 after finding that the sale of Uber’s Southeast Asian business to Grab for a 27.5 per cent stake in Grab was in breach of the Competition Act (the ‘Act’).11 The CCCS found that the transaction resulted in a substantial lessening of competition in the provision of ride-hailing platform services
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The impact of EU cartel policy reforms on the timing of settlements in private follow-on damages disputes—an empirical assessment of cases from 2001 to 2015 Journal of Antitrust Enforcement (IF 0.6) Pub Date : 2020-11-09 Friederiszick HW, Gratz L, Rauber M.
AbstractPrivate cartel damages litigation is on the rise in Europe since early 2000. This development has been initiated by the European courts and was supported by various policy initiatives of the European Commission, which found its culmination in the implementation of the EU Directive on Antitrust Damages end of 2016. This article explores the impact of this reform process on effective compensation