Competition and Merger Management in the European Union A study in Antitrust cases against Multi-sided Platforms
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Program
Management and economics of innovation (MPMEI), MSc
Publicerad
2023
Författare
Schmidt, Chatchano
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Multi-sided platforms are becoming an increasingly integral part of our everyday lives, with large companies like Google and Microsoft being some of the most well-known. The U.S. based companies Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft constitute half of the world’s ten most valuable companies at the moment. Such size comes with a lot of power and responsibility and multi-sided platforms have had a series of quarrels with the law for misusing their power. Antitrust laws in particular are one set of laws that multi-sided platforms, perhaps unsurprisingly, have continuously violated. The aim of this report is to study how the European competition authorities have evaluated competition and mergers against multi-sided platforms. Furthermore, the study aims to provide an overview on the EU with brief remarks on the U.S. as well as provide brief remarks on potential future implications within this field. The empirical findings that were derived from studying the cases were compared to literature on platforms and antitrust. The findings indicate a clear shift in the nature of the cases that can be correlated to the growth of multi-sided platforms.
The cases in the EU become more severe as time progresses and the multi-sided platforms grow to become more dominant. It can also be seen that there is a similarity in the cases in both the EU and the U.S. but that the approaches in the two jurisdictions have some key differences, mainly with a slight bias towards the EU being stricter. Another key insight is that Antitrust law has not been able to keep up with multi-sided platforms both because their growth has been so rapid but also because the longer-term implications of these platforms are incredibly difficult to assess. Only recently, antitrust law is seemingly catching up but the exact strategy of how to move forward with regulating multi-sided platforms remains somewhat of a mystery. On the one hand innovation of multi-sided platforms undeniably creates value for consumers but on the other hand, impeding competition might be negative for consumers in the long term. Recently the notion of customer harm has also creeped into the discussion. The study concludes by acknowledging this dilemma as well as highlighting the importance of legislators to be educated on the impact of platforms and designing well balanced future regulations.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Antitrust , Digital Economy , Multi-Sided Platforms , EU , The European Commission , Innovation , Competition , Dominant Position