This paper expounds the latest main regulatory projects and industry-wide consultations in the United States (US), in the European Union (EU) and in the main economic countries where distributed ledgers (thereafter, “Blockchain”) regulations have been discussed, proposed and/or adopted. In...

Despite the rapidly growing volume and economic importance of data in the digital economy, the legal framework for data ownership, access and trade remains incompletely defined in the EU and elsewhere. De facto data ownership dominates and often leads to fragmentation or anti-commons problems in...

This paper describes the different forces that shape the market structure of four different "online platform ecosystems" and the competition between them. The paper focuses on the following categories of platforms, which represent a wide scope of online activities: (i) e-commerce marketplaces;...

The aim of this paper is to explain evidence of unfair practices by online platforms towards business users, particularly SME's. First, using survey data, we show that sellers operating with four different categories of platforms multi-home (marketplaces, app stores, social networks and online...

This report presents evidence on the relationship between online platforms and businesses using these platforms to reach consumers or conduct their operations. First, we review the literature on vertical relationships both from a classic approach and from a multi-sided market perspective....

The significance of data as an economic good in the digital economy quickly raises the question of who owns the data. More specifically, within the context of a data marketplace in which data is being exchanged or traded and where different bundles of rights (property rights) are trans-ferred...

The European Commission's Proposal for a Regulation on European Crowdfunding Service Providers (ECSPs) for businesses, since its presentation, has faced difficult trilateral negotiations among the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The length of...

The European Commission's Proposal for a Regulation on European Crowdfunding Service Providers (ECSPs) for businesses, since its presentation, has faced difficult trilateral negotiations among the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The length of...

Marketplace lending and investing have been recently attracting increasing regulatory attention. However, regulatory responses to such phenomenon have been extremely varied, even in Europe, characterized by maximum harmonization in the field of financial regulation, continuous efforts in...

The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive ((EU) 2019/790) has been a subject of heated and highly polarised debate, and an object of intense lobbying from the outset. It grasped the attention of a multitude of stakeholders, including tech companies, publishers, platforms,...