The “essential facilities” doctrine imposes antitrust liability when one firm that controls an essential facility denies a second firm reasonable access to a product or service that the second firm must obtain in order to compete with the first. Although questioned by “Chicago school” adherents, there are two potential theories of antitrust liability, which could be employed to address the kind of behavior Amazon is accused of-the “essential facilities” doctrine and the theory of “monopoly leveraging.” The “Essential Facilities” Doctrine In order to deal with the problems associated with “big tech” platforms and excessive concentration in many industries, some politicians and academics have called for a revitalization of the antitrust laws and beefed-up antitrust enforcement. As a result, according to one witness at the recent congressional hearing, “Dominant corporations have been allowed to amass an unprecedented degree of market power, and have been given far more leeway to use that power to undermine, exclude, and crush their smaller rivals.” anti-monopoly law to give much more leeway to dominant firms. In contrast, over the last 40 years, antitrust enforcers and courts in the U.S., influenced by free-market “Chicago school” economic thinking, have reinterpreted the U.S. As the EU statement announcing a multi-billion dollar fine against Google recently stated, “Dominant companies have a special responsibility not to abuse their powerful market positions by restricting competition, either in the market where they are dominant or in separate markets.” The EU antitrust authorities explained that a company dominant in one market-even if the dominance resulted from competition on the merits-should not be able to use its market power to cement or further expand its dominance, or to leverage it in two separate markets. In the EU, a “dominant company” has a “special responsibility” not to disadvantage rivals.
antitrust laws are interpreted today in markedly different manners. The answer may well be different because the EU competition laws and the U.S. So this raises the question-assuming Amazon is misusing the data of third-party merchants on its platform (which Amazon denies), would that violate the competition laws in the U.S. In a similar vein, the European Union antitrust authorities just announced that they had opened a formal investigation into whether Amazon is unfairly boosting its own sales at the expense of independent third-party merchants on its platform by using the merchants’ non-public transaction data to compete against them. An Amazon witness denied misuse of third-party data at the hearing.
Mitchell, Co-Director, Institute for Local Self-Reliance), “Amazon doesn’t just dominate the online market it controls access to it.” According to testimony at the congressional hearing, many small and independent retailers feel compelled to sell through the Amazon platform but are concerned that Amazon misuses the data Amazon obtains from third-party transactions to advantage Amazon’s own products or to launch Amazon private-label brands in competition. A spokesperson for small and independent businesses reported that Amazon now captures more than half of all online retail sales and dominates many specific product categories, including books, toys, apparel, and electronics. A recent congressional hearing questioned whether Amazon is acting anti-competitively.
0 kommentar(er)
