Platforms, or two-sided markets, have become a topic of significant discussion in competition law over the past decade, culminating in the recent US Supreme Court decision in Ohio v. American Express Co. This note discusses externalities in platforms. Indirect network effects, one type of...

Antitrust enforcement against anticompetitive platform most favored nations (MFN) provisions (also termed pricing parity provisions) can help protect competition in online markets. An online platform imposes a platform MFN when it requires that providers using its platform not offer their...

This essay provides a perspective on the role of antitrust law in protecting and fostering competition in the digital economy, with particular attention to online platforms. It highlights the danger of anti-competitive exclusionary conduct by dominant online platforms and describes ways that...

Robert Bork's Antitrust Paradox (1978) has been justification for lack of antitrust behavior for over four decades. His test essentially asks if consumers are harmed by the pricing practices of the firm in the market in which they purchase the good or service. Even if these firms are monopoly or...

A frequent starting point of the ongoing debates on a future platform regulation – in the EU in the form of a “Digital Markets Act” (DMA) – is the alleged ineffectiveness of competition law enforcement in the digital realm, and in particular when it comes to “abuse of domi-nance” or...

Platform businesses have been pivotal in the rise of the digital economy. Amazon is one example of a platform taking on the role of a quasi-regulator; an entity that is able to determine the terms of interaction on the platform. This intermediary position entails the danger of anti-competitive...

The Discussion Paper, intended to guide the ACCC toward the recommendations in the ongoing Digital Platform Services Inquiry, suggests consideration of a wide variety of sweeping changes in Australian competition-law enforcement and the enactment of additional regulations in regard to social...

In recent years, several competition authorities around the world have announced majorinvestigations into potential anti-competitive behaviour by digital platforms. Not all ofthat behaviour harms downstream consumers. This has contributed to a growing ‘existentialcrisis’ at the foundation of...

Free!! Google and Facebook!!! We all know them, what to worry about? Everything! The giants of the internet are expanding into every corner of the economy, politics and our lives. They control the majority of digital advertising; Alphabet, Google's parent, and Facebook receive more than 60...