E-commerce is no longer the last frontier of antitrust law, but rather the battlefield of a war which is already being fought on many fronts. On the trustbuster’s side, the Bundeskartellamt’s purposeful and self-proclaimed leadership as regards vertical restraints on the use of online marketplaces has recently met with the Commission’s slowly but steadily coming back into play from its initial indolence (as proven by the Preliminary Report on the e-commerce sector inquiry published on 15 September 2016), and its recent alliance with the French authority (whose help the EU watchdog has sought to carry out probes in the e‑commerce sector).
At any rate, the rules of this regulatory game will be set by the judges in Luxembourg, already questioned by the German judiciary whether selective distributors at the retail level can be lawfully barred from enlisting online sale-handling services of third-party platforms discernible to the public, regardless of the supplier’s quality standards (request for a preliminary ruling in case C-230/16). On the undertaking’s side of the house, Amazon has asked to be heard in the case as a golden opportunity to tip the scales in favour of retailer’s freedom to sell products on marketplaces.
Although the focus is clearly placed on retailers’ ability to use marketplaces, until the ECJ delivers its verdict the Italian Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (which seems to like riding high on the Booking.com–Expedia wave), has availed of the tense interlude to streamline the online booking sector again by launching a monitoring project. This project aims at gauging the implementation of the commitments made by Booking.com and Expedia in partnership with other nine National Competition Authorities (Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden and UK).
This landscape having paved the way for a bit of self-promotion, I will take the opportunity to present my recent publication in the European Journal of Legal Studies with the headline: ‘Price parity clauses: Has the Commission let slip the watchdogs of war?’ Continue reading “Has the Commission let slip the watchdogs of war?”