In this paper, we analyse the potential application to the cloud computing services sector of EU competition rules governing anti-competitive agreements and abuses of a dominant position. We argue that defining the relevant market for cloud services is a key threshold issue, with complex product...

Antitrust law enforcement against vertical restraints has made great progress since the 1970s, building on the advances in economic thinking. Challenges to vertical mergers are rare and most vertical restraints are not prohibited without an analysis of their anticompetitive effects. Most...

The paper explores how EU competition law has integrated so far the concept of brands in different areas of enforcement. Although EU competition law has engaged in multiple instances with branding and product differentiation, brands do not yet constitute an operational concept in EU competition...

Antitrust scholars have argued that exclusive contracts have anticompetitive, or at best neutral effects, if no efficiencies are generated. In contrast, this paper shows that exclusive contracts can have procompetitive effects, provided buyers are imperfect downstream competitors and contract...

Antitrust scholars have argued that exclusive contracts have anticompetitive, or at best neutral effects, if no efficiencies are generated. In contrast, this paper shows that exclusive contracts can have procompetitive effects, provided buyers are imperfect downstream competitors and contract...

Recent claims that online platforms have secured permanent monopolies, protected by barriers to entry from network effects and stockpiles of data, and should be the focus of intense antitrust and regulatory scrutiny, are inconsistent with the economics, technology, and history of online...

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...

Recent advances in machine learning have reinforced the competitive position of leading online platforms. This Essay identifies two important sources of platform rivalry and proposes ways to maximize their competitive potential under existing antitrust law. A nascent competitor is a threatening...

Brands matter. In modern times, brands and brand management have become a central feature of the modern economy and a staple of business theory and business practice. Coca-Cola, Nike, Google, Disney, Apple, Microsoft, BMW, Marlboro, IBM, Kellogg’s, Louis-Vuitton, and Virgin are all large...

One of the main characteristics of the amendments to the Federal Law of Economic Competition (LFCE, as per its abbreviation in Spanish) is that it includes, in explicit manner, several unilateral conducts of the economic agents, broadening the catalogue of relative monopolist practice. Some of...