IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/telpol/v46y2022i5s0308596121001920.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The European Commission's approach to mergers involving software-based platforms: Towards a better understanding of platform power

Author

Listed:
  • Afilipoaie, Adelaida
  • Donders, Karen
  • Ballon, Pieter

Abstract

The European Commission’s digital single market policies are increasingly concerned with the impact of so-called ‘platforms’ on competition in the internal market. Whereas the European Commission acknowledges the contributions of platform companies to innovation, it also sees actual and potential damages occurring from their powerful position. As such, the European Commission aims to strengthen the enforcement of its competition law rules in this area. The main research question is how the European Commission has been evaluating the competitive effects of platforms under merger control and whether its approach is adequate to address the manifold concerns related to platforms and competition. Based on a case study analysis, we conclude that the European Commission (1) recognises the platform circumstance, their essential intermediary role in the digital industry and the importance of maintaining fair competition; (2) its analysis has been slowly evolving becoming more granular; (3) platforms’ behaviour and not their size per se is most often the central concern; (4) the proposed Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act packages tackle platform concerns identified in the European Commission’s ex-ante analysis, signalling that its analysis seems to have inspired their creation.

Suggested Citation

  • Afilipoaie, Adelaida & Donders, Karen & Ballon, Pieter, 2022. "The European Commission's approach to mergers involving software-based platforms: Towards a better understanding of platform power," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(5).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:46:y:2022:i:5:s0308596121001920
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596121001920
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.telpol.2021.102288?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. Bruno Jullien & Yassine Lefouili, 2018. "Corrigendum," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(3), pages 493-493.
    2. Baumol, William J, 1982. "Contestable Markets: An Uprising in the Theory of Industry Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(1), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Jean‐Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Two‐sided markets: a progress report," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, September.
    4. Alexandre de Cornière & Greg Taylor, 2021. "Upstream Bundling and Leverage of Market Power [Commodity bundling and the burden of monopoly]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3122-3144.
    5. Jonathan D. Levin, 2011. "The Economics of Internet Markets," NBER Working Papers 16852, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. David Evans, 2011. "The Antitrust Economics of Free," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 7.
    7. Just, Natascha, 2018. "Governing online platforms: Competition policy in times of platformization," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 386-394.
    8. Hagiu, Andrei & Wright, Julian, 2015. "Multi-sided platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 162-174.
    9. Gary Biglaiser & Emilio Calvano & Jacques Crémer, 2019. "Incumbency advantage and its value," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 41-48, January.
    10. Ballon, Pieter & Van Heesvelde, Eric, 2011. "ICT platforms and regulatory concerns in Europe," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 702-714, September.
    11. Paul Belleflamme & Martin Peitz, 2018. "Platforms and network effects," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume II, chapter 11, pages 286-317, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Claire Borsenberger & Mathilde Hoang & Denis Joram, 2018. "Open-Data: A Solution When Data Constitutes an Essential Facility?," Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy, in: Pier Luigi Parcu & Timothy J. Brennan & Victor Glass (ed.), New Business and Regulatory Strategies in the Postal Sector, pages 131-142, Springer.
    13. Michael L. Katz, 2019. "Multisided Platforms, Big Data, and a Little Antitrust Policy," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(4), pages 695-716, June.
    14. repec:reg:rpubli:174 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Jorge Padilla & Joe Perkins & Salvatore Piccolo, 2020. "Self-Preferencing in Markets with Vertically-Integrated Gatekeeper Platforms," CSEF Working Papers 582, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    16. David Evans, 2013. "Economics Of Vertical Restraints For Multi-Sided Platforms," CPI Journal, Competition Policy International, vol. 9.
    17. Wolfgang Kerber, 2016. "Digital Markets, Data, and Privacy: Competition Law, Consumer Law, and Data Protection," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201614, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    18. David S. Evans & Richard Schmalensee, 2013. "The Antitrust Analysis of Multi-Sided Platform Businesses," NBER Working Papers 18783, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mendieta-Aragón, Adrián & Rodríguez-Fernández, Laura & Navío-Marco, Julio, 2023. "Tourism usage of digital collaborative economy platforms in Europe: situation, behaviours and implication for the digital policies," 32nd European Regional ITS Conference, Madrid 2023: Realising the digital decade in the European Union – Easier said than done? 278002, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).

    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. Jullien, Bruno & Sand-Zantman, Wilfried, 2021. "The Economics of Platforms: A Theory Guide for Competition Policy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    2. Steffen, Nico & Wiewiorra, Lukas & Kroon, Peter, 2021. "Wettbewerb und Regulierung in der Plattform- und Datenökonomie," WIK Discussion Papers 481, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.
    3. Shekhar, Shiva, 2020. "Zero Pricing Platform Competition," MPRA Paper 99364, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Argentesi, Elena & Buccirossi, Paolo & Calvano, Emilio & Duso, Tomaso & Marrazzo, Alessia & Nava, Salvatore, 2021. "Merger Policy in Digital Markets: An Ex Post Assessment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 17(1), pages 95-140.
    5. Jullien, Bruno & Pavan, Alessandro & Rysman, Marc, 2021. "Two-sided Markets, Pricing, and Network Effects," TSE Working Papers 21-1238, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    6. Lei Huang & Yandong Zhao & Liang Mei & Peiyi Wu & Zhihua Zhao & Yijun Mao, 2019. "Structural Holes in the Multi-Sided Market: A Market Allocation Structure Analysis of China’s Car-Hailing Platform in the Context of Open Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-20, October.
    7. Michael Böheim & Werner Hölzl & Agnes Kügler, 2018. "Wettbewerbs- und regulierungspolitische Herausforderungen der Digitalisierung. Auf dem Weg zu einer "Sozialen Marktwirtschaft 4.0"," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 91(12), pages 871-880, December.
    8. Calvano, Emilio & Polo, Michele, 2021. "Market power, competition and innovation in digital markets: A survey," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Budzinski, Oliver & Grusevaja, Marina, 2017. "Die Medienökonomik personalisierter Daten und der Facebook-Fall," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 107, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    10. Julia Bock-Schappelwein & Michael Böheim & Elisabeth Christen & Stefan Ederer & Matthias Firgo & Klaus S. Friesenbichler & Werner Hölzl & Mathias Kirchner & Angela Köppl & Agnes Kügler & Christine May, 2018. "Politischer Handlungsspielraum zur optimalen Nutzung der Vorteile der Digitalisierung für Wirtschaftswachstum, Beschäftigung und Wohlstand," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 61256, April.
    11. Caccinelli, Chiara & Toledano, Joëlle, 2017. "Assessing Anticompetitive Practices in Two-Sided Markets: A Comparative Analysis of four Antitrust Proceedings against Booking.com," 28th European Regional ITS Conference, Passau 2017 169452, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    12. Lam, W., 2015. "Switching Costs in Two-sided Markets," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015024, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    13. Bach Quang Ho & Yuki Inoue, 2020. "Driving Network Externalities in Education for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-16, October.
    14. Inoue, Yuki & Tsujimoto, Masaharu, 2018. "New market development of platform ecosystems: A case study of the Nintendo Wii," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 235-253.
    15. Pouyet, Jérôme & Trégouët, Thomas, 2016. "Vertical Mergers in Platform Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 11703, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Pierre ANDREOLETTI & Pierre GAZE & Maxime MENUET, 2015. "Can a Platform Make Profit with Consumers' Mobility? A Two-Sided Monopoly Model with Random Endogenous Side-Switching," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 1969, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    17. Oliver Budzinski & Annika Stöhr, 2019. "Competition policy reform in Europe and Germany – institutional change in the light of digitization," European Competition Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 15-54, January.
    18. Christian Stummer & Dennis Kundisch & Reinhold Decker, 2018. "Platform Launch Strategies," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 60(2), pages 167-173, April.
    19. Marleen Marra, 2019. "Pricing and Fees in Auction Platforms with Two-Sided Entry," Working Papers hal-03393068, HAL.
    20. Grace Gu & Feng Zhu, 2018. "Trust and Disintermediation: Evidence from an Online Freelance Marketplace," Harvard Business School Working Papers 18-103, Harvard Business School.

    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:eee:telpol:v:46:y:2022:i:5:s0308596121001920. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/description#description .

    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.