IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/ajlecn/v7y2016i1p101-145n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Retail MFN Clauses Lead to Softening of Competition?

Author

Listed:
  • Sim Justina

    (Competition Commission of Singapore, Business and Economics Division, 45 Maxwell Road #09-01 The URA Centre, 069118, Singapore)

  • Poh Lip Hang
  • Tay Calvin

    (Competition Commission of Singapore, Policy and Markets Division, Singapore)

Abstract

Retail most favored nation (“RMFN”) clauses are commonly found in vertical agreements inked between downstream e-commerce platform providers and upstream suppliers. Competition authorities in Europe have investigated RMFN clauses in e-commerce markets on grounds that they can foreclose competitors from the market, lead to collusion or soften competition amongst competitors. We present an assessment of RMFN clauses under Singapore’s competition law framework. We find that Singapore’s competition law can adequately deal with collusion and foreclosure concerns. However, the vertical agreement exemption in Singapore’s competition law may prevent the Competition Commission of Singapore (“CCS”) from sanctioning RMFN clauses that soften competition. We conclude from our game theoretic models that the softening of competition Theory of Harm (“TOH”) is unlikely to materialize. Our findings also contribute more generally to competition authorities’ enforcement priorities and tools involving RMFN clauses and the softening of competition TOH.

Suggested Citation

  • Sim Justina & Poh Lip Hang & Tay Calvin, 2016. "Do Retail MFN Clauses Lead to Softening of Competition?," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 101-145, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:ajlecn:v:7:y:2016:i:1:p:101-145:n:3
    DOI: 10.1515/ajle-2015-0020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/ajle-2015-0020
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/ajle-2015-0020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Marcus, Scott & Rey, Patrick & Tirole, Jean, 2003. "Internet Interconnection and the Off-Net-Cost Pricing Principle," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 370-390, Summer.
    2. Jonathan Coppel, 2000. "E-Commerce: Impacts and Policy Challenges," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 252, OECD Publishing.
    3. Tanjim Hossain & John Morgan, 2013. "When Do Markets Tip? A Cognitive Hierarchy Approach," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(3), pages 431-453, May.
    4. Nelson Granados & Alok Gupta & Robert J. Kauffman, 2012. "Online and Offline Demand and Price Elasticities: Evidence from the Air Travel Industry," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 164-181, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jahn, Eric & Prüfer, Jens, 2008. "Interconnection and competition among asymmetric networks in the Internet backbone market," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 243-256, September.
    2. Lippert, Steffen & Spagnolo, Giancarlo, 2008. "Internet peering as a network of relations," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 33-49, February.
    3. Narine Badasyan & Subhadip Chakrabarti, 2003. "Private Peering Among Internet Backbone Providers," Industrial Organization 0301002, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 20 Jan 2003.
    4. Salmani, Yasamin & Partovi, Fariborz Y., 2021. "Channel-level resource allocation decision in multichannel retailing: A U.S. multichannel company application," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    5. Hanna Hałaburda & Yaron Yehezkel, 2016. "The Role of Coordination Bias in Platform Competition," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 274-312, April.
    6. Ting Li & Robert J. Kauffman & Eric van Heck & Peter Vervest & Benedict G. C. Dellaert, 2014. "Consumer Informedness and Firm Information Strategy," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(2), pages 345-363, June.
    7. Rodrigo V. Ventura & Manoela Cabo & Rafael Caixeta & Elton Fernandes & Vicente Aprigliano Fernandes, 2020. "Air Transportation Income and Price Elasticities in Remote Areas: The Case of the Brazilian Amazon Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-18, July.
    8. ?zlem Bedre-Defolie & Emilio Calvano, 2013. "Pricing Payment Cards," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 206-231, August.
    9. Roberto M Samaniego, 2006. "A Theory of Entry and Exit with Embodied Rate of Technical Change," 2006 Meeting Papers 765, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Laura Núñez Letamendía & Lucía Lisbona Fuentes, 2001. "Aproximación y medición del comercio electrónico: principales datos a nivel nacional," Working Papers 01/01, Instituto Universitario de Análisis Económico y Social.
    11. Jun Li & Nelson Granados & Serguei Netessine, 2014. "Are Consumers Strategic? Structural Estimation from the Air-Travel Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(9), pages 2114-2137, September.
    12. Altan, Başak & Sunay, M. Oğuz, 2020. "Optimal peer-to-peer network for streaming multimedia broadcast," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 166-174.
    13. Doh-Shin Jeon & Sjaak Hurkens, 2007. "A Retail Benchmarking Approach to Efficient Two-way Access Pricing: Two-Part Tariffs," Working Papers 07-11, NET Institute, revised Sep 2007.
    14. Peitz, Martin & Valletti, Tommaso M. & Wright, Julian, 2004. "Competition in telecommunications: an introduction," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 315-321, September.
    15. Boyer, Robert, 2001. "La "nouvelle économie" au futur antérieur : histoire, théories, géographie," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Couverture Orange) 0113, CEPREMAP.
    16. Hurkens, Sjaak & Jeon, Doh-Shin, 2009. "Mobile termination and mobile penetration," IESE Research Papers D/816, IESE Business School.
    17. Sjaak Hurkens & Doh-Shin Jeon, 2008. "A Retail Benchmarking Approach to Efficient Two-Way Access Pricing: Termination-Based Price Discrimination with Elastic Subscription Demand," Working Papers 08-41, NET Institute, revised Nov 2008.
    18. Nestor Duch-Brown & Bertin Martens, 2014. "Consumer benefits from the EU Digital Single Market: evidence from household appliances markets," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2014-03, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    19. Hamid Garmani & Mohamed Amrani & Mohamed Baslam & Rachid Ayachi & Mostafa Jourhmane, 2019. "A Stackelberg game-based approach for interactions among Internet service providers and content providers," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 101-128, December.
    20. Rodrigo Acuna-Agost & Eoin Thomas & Alix Lhéritier, 2021. "Price elasticity estimation for deep learning-based choice models: an application to air itinerary choices," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(3), pages 213-226, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:ajlecn:v:7:y:2016:i:1:p:101-145:n:3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.