Digital platforms have reshaped the world economic order. Competition laws around the world have required acclimatizing to developments occurring in digital platform markets with respect to new types of conduct being deemed anti-competitive by competition law enforcement bodies. Between 2016-2019, more than 30 competition agencies from around the world released reports regarding competition in the digital age. In the EU, the need to develop tools to assess abusive conduct by dominant digital platform firms led to the creation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in 2022 which is to act as an additional regulatory tool to Article 102 TFEU.
Cases relating to the exploitative nature of the data collection policy of Meta/Facebook have been initiated in Germany and the UK. Data collection has also allowed price personalization to take place which has the capability of resembling first-degree price discrimination which can be harmful to consumers when there is no increase in total output. There has been minimal discussion on the occurrence of predatory pricing in online platform markets through cross-subsidization being facilitated due to the nature of two-sided online platforms. The thesis considers the role of competition law in the assessment of these.
This thesis examines the occurrence of conduct that may resemble unfair pricing, unfair trading conditions, first-degree price discrimination, and predatory pricing which are prohibited under Article 102 TFEU. The thesis evaluates whether Article 102 TFEU can and should be used in such cases and tries to devise suitable remedies for certain digital platform market infringements by also considering the use of other relevant legislations such as the GDPR, Consumer Protection Directives, and the DMA. The thesis provides an evaluative contribution to the area of pricing-based abuse of dominance in digital platform markets.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)