Digital platforms facilitate interactions between consumers and merchants that allow collection of profiling information which drives innovation and welfare. Private incentives, however, lead to information asymmetries resulting in market failures both on-platform, among merchants, and...

We analyze a search engine market from a law and economics perspective and incorporate the choice of quality improving innovations by a search engine platform in a two-sided model of internet search engine. In the proposed framework we, first, discuss the legal issues the search engine market...

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded, the European Commission (Commission) started labelling its enforcement of European Union (EU) competition law as exceptional. A Temporary Framework for State Aid was issued for the ‘current exceptional circumstances’ describing multiple types of aid dealing...

Drawing from the economics of two-sided markets, we provide suggestions for the definition of the relevant market in cases involving two-sided platforms, such as media outlets, online intermediaries, payment cards companies and auction houses. We also discuss when a one-sided approach may be...

In dealing with applications for injunctive relief by the holders of FRAND-encumbered SEPs in the course of protracted licensing negotiations, any legal system faces the challenge of reaching the proper balance between predictability for stakeholders and differentiation between possible...

Theoretical IO models of horizontal mergers and acquisitions make the critical assumption of efficiency gains. Without efficiency gains, these models predict either that mergers are not profitable or that mergers are welfare reducing. A problem here is the empirical observation that on average...

Ten years ago, EU Competition law transitioned from a system of centralized enforcement managed by the European Commission to a decentralized domain regulated by multiple institutional actors situated at both national and supranational level. With this development, the need for usage of...

The goal of the current work is to delineate national judicial responses to Commission-issued competition soft law within two EU jurisdictions – the UK and the Netherlands. For this purpose, a comparative methodology is adopted and – in terms of theory – several hypotheses of possible...