Applying EU Competition Law to Online Platforms : The Road Ahead

The adequate application of EU competition law to online platforms will entail multiple challenges to the current framework, which have yet been comprehensively explored. This contribution provides an overview of such challenges that enforcement authorities and undertakings will face in absence of certain modifications to the framework of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. The various challenges that will arise in the course of application may be divided into three categories, namely application thresholds, qualification of practices and justification possibilities. In the context of this article, application thresholds refer to the instance wherein certain behavior is considered as falling under the scope of Art. 101 or 102 TFEU. Qualifications of practices refer to the assessment of an investigated behavior and the finding of an abuse of dominance or a restriction of competition through coordination by object or effect. Finally, challenges concerning justification grounds in the context of this paper refer to the feasibility of relying on the justification grounds of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU