This article assesses the relevance of efficiencies and other justifications in recent Article 102 TFEU cases. Based on a review of all EU decisions and openings between 2009 and mid 2013 we find that procompetitive justifications still play a mediocre role in the EU Commission's evaluations,...

In 2008, the European Commission investigated E.ON, a large and vertically integrated electricity company, for the alleged abuse of a joint dominant position by strategically withholding generation capacity. The case was settled after E.ON agreed to divest 5,000 MW generation capacity as well as...

In 2008, the European Commission investigated E.ON, a large and vertically integrated electricity company, for the alleged abuse of a joint dominant position by strategically withholding generation capacity. The case was settled after E.ON agreed to divest 5,000 MW generation capacity as well as...

Practices and conducts in professional and even amateur sports can be subject to competition laws as soon as commercial activities are involved. From an economic perspective, this implies that both directly commercial activities like the sale of broadcasting/media rights and indirectly...

This comment addresses the opinion of the Advocate General (AG) of the European Court of Justice on the pending case European Super League versus UEFA/FIFA. It takes a critical perspective on selected aspects of the opinion’s reasoning from a (sports) economics perspective. Highlighting the...

We present a model of a market failure based on a requirement provision by digital platforms in the acquisition of personal information from users of other products/services. We establish the economic harm from the market failure and the requirement using traditional antitrust methodology....

This chapter aims to review data-driven mergers including, but not limited to, major conglomerates involving large scale of individual user data, known as ‘big data', by Facebook (WhatsApp), Microsoft (Yahoo!, Skype and LinkedIn), Google (Double Click), TomTom (Tele Atlas), Publicis/Omnicon,...

We examine the merits of competition cases brought against Google with respect to alleged search bias. The four key steps in a structured investigation into an alleged abuse of dominance/monopolization/unfair method of competition are:1) characterization of the conduct, 2) market definition, 3)...

One of the most profound changes in the industrial landscape in the last decade has been the growth of business ecosystems- groups of connected firms, drawing on (digital) platforms which leverage their complementors and lock-in their customers, exploiting the “bottlenecks” that emerge in...

The ministerial proposal for a 10th amendment of the German competition law particularly addresses abuse control and seeks to tighten this pillar of competition policy against the background of the challenges from the digital economy. Next to extending the classic policy instruments of abuse...