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A Competition Law Assessment Of Platform Most-Favored-Customer Clauses

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  • Pınar Akman

Abstract

Most-favored-customer (MFC) clauses adopted by online platforms in their relevant contractual relationships guarantee to an online platform that a supplier will treat the platform as favorably as the supplier's most-favored-customer concerning price, availability, and similar terms of a given transaction. These clauses are a fundamental aspect of the business models of some of the world's leading companies such as Apple, Amazon, Expedia, and the like. The competition law implications of these clauses have been one of the key concerns of more than a dozen competition authorities around the world in recent years. The competition authorities involved have adopted different approaches and reached different substantive and procedural outcomes, sometimes in proceedings that concern the application of the same legal rule to the same practice of the same company. This is best demonstrated by the line of investigations against certain online travel agents in Europe. This article posits that such diverging approaches lead to legal and business uncertainty, as well as to procedurally unfair and substantively incorrect assessments. In an effort to rectify this suboptimal situation, this article provides a comprehensive, principled approach for the assessment of platform MFC clauses under competition law—in particular, under EU competition law.

Suggested Citation

  • Pınar Akman, 2016. "A Competition Law Assessment Of Platform Most-Favored-Customer Clauses," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 781-833.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jcomle:v:12:y:2016:i:4:p:781-833.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/joclec/nhw021
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    Cited by:

    1. Michele Bisceglia & Jorge Padilla & Salvatore Piccolo, 2019. "When Prohibiting Platform Parity Agreements Harms Consumers," CSEF Working Papers 542, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    2. Bisceglia, Michele & Padilla, Jorge & Piccolo, Salvatore, 2021. "When prohibiting wholesale price-parity agreements may harm consumers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Pinar Akman & D. Daniel Sokol, 2017. "Online RPM and MFN Under Antitrust Law and Economics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(2), pages 133-151, March.
    4. Maruyama, Masayoshi & Zennyo, Yusuke, 2020. "Platform most-favored-customer clauses and investment incentives," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Wals, Francisca & Schinkel, Maarten Pieter, 2018. "Platform monopolization by narrow-PPC-BPG combination: Booking et al," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 572-589.
    6. 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).

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