A blog about competition, regulation and privacy in the digital era
Partners Damien Geradin and Stijn Huijts had the pleasure of sitting down with Joost Rietveld, an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the UCL School of Management, University College London, to discuss his fascinating insights into platform competition and strategy. Joost has been a major contributor to the public debate in this area in the … Continue reading Interview with Joost Rietveld, UCL School of Management
Partners Ruben Elkerbout and Stijn Huijts had the pleasure of catching up with Martijn Snoep, the head of the Dutch Competition Authority (ACM) recently. Mr Snoep moved to the ACM from law firm De Brauw in 2018. He has been at the forefront of many internationally renowned initiatives at the ACM, including an investigation into … Continue reading Interview with Martijn Snoep, Head of the Dutch competition authority
The European Commission has accepted a set of legally-binding commitments offered by Amazon to settle two long-running antitrust investigations into whether Amazon has abused its dominant position in e-commerce. In doing so, the Commission will not issue a formal infringement decision and will not impose a fine. This is a significant outcome for these … Continue reading Amazon settles EU allegations regarding third-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace: some progress made but much remains to be done
Last week, I spoke at the Video Games Bar Association’s annual summit which took place at devcom in Cologne, Germany. The event confirmed to me that gaming is where the innovative technologies of the future are in many ways already a reality today. It was my contention at the conference that competition law is turning … Continue reading Antitrust is turning its eye to gaming
Some days you just can’t get a break. Amazon was the recipient of not one but two pieces of bad news yesterday, with the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announcing that it has launched an investigation under the Competition Act 1998 into possible abuses of dominance by Amazon, and the German Federal Cartel Office … Continue reading UK and Germany double up on Amazon
A big development in European competition enforcement in digital markets occurred today as both the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced simultaneously that they are investigating the ‘Jedi Blue’ agreement. This is an agreement between Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) that may have targeted a disruptive advertising technology known as … Continue reading EU and UK take on ‘Jedi Blue’ – Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?
Yesterday The Wall Street Journal broke the news that the EU is about to formally charge Amazon regarding its treatment of third-party sellers on its marketplace. The European Commission - which has been investigating Amazon since September 2018 - is expected to issue a Statement of Objection during the summer, whereby it will lay down … Continue reading European Commission to send a statement of objections to Amazon. No, this is not protectionism.