This article provides an overview of the competitive issues surrounding online platforms. The general theme is that while much has been made of the structural features of online platforms there is little hard evidence that these are durable monopolies. Nonetheless, there are concerns about the...

This article looks at the definition, conditions and evidence necessary to establish that a price squeeze is an exclusionary abuse, and thus an infringement of EC competition law. It shows that the necessary conditions are demanding, and that the empirical test for a price squeeze must be...

This foreword reviews the law and economics of an anti-competitive margin squeeze adopted by European and national competition authorities together with a critical assessment of the European Court of Justice's Telia/Sonera judgment in early 2012

The European Commission's decision to block the GE/Honeywell merger in 2001 ignited a wave of criticism from US antitrust authorities and commentators not seen since the Boeing/McDonnell Douglas merger in the mid-90s. This revealed deep differences in the substance and enforcement of EC and US...

The UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has been a highly rated competition law enforcer. Yet its antitrust performance activities fall far short of this image. Here a critical assessment is made of the OFT's antitrust enforcement activities, and the claim that there is quantitative survey evidence...

The standard of proof required in merger cases has become the centre of considerable controversies and confusion following the Australian Federal Court's decision in Metcash. This paper reviews the use of counterfactuals and the inherent contradictions in adopting the real chance standard of...

These two papers look at recent decisions and controversies surrounding the counterfactual test under s 36 of the New Zealand Commerce Act 1986, and s46 of the Australian Competition and Consumer Act 2010 respectively. In 2010 the New Zealand Supreme Court in 0867 affirmed the counterfactual as...

Based on an analysis of cartel prosecutions since 2007, this article assesses the way the European Commission has built up its fines in practice. The fines are compared with those imposed by the European Commission over the period from 1999 to 2006. The main findings are that, while fines have...

The certifications of the first two opt-out collective (class) actions - Gibson v. Pride Mobility Scooter and Merricks v MasterCard - were dismissed by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) under the new UK competition law ‘class action' regime. Here a critical assessment of the CAT's two...