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Background
Economic theory asserts that expected profits determine entry. However, for digital economies entry decisions are not driven by (immediate) profits like in traditional sectors. Profits start to pile up once the company is already quite successful (big and maybe already dominant), since in the digital economy turnover and profits are associated to size. Therefore, the digital industry poses many challenges to antitrust enforcement. In merger control the major issue is that very often big digital companies acquire smaller, sometimes only potential rivals. Static market power is unaffected because the smaller rival offers its services for free and did not yet develop any turnover, and yet many claim that these mergers should nonetheless be blocked because the smaller rival may have the potential to challenge in the future the market power of the big established digital firms. Abuse of dominance type cases require extensive analysis of data and of consumption patterns to detect market wide effects.
A related problem associated with this complexity, is that in many jurisdictions, antitrust cases last a very long time and the issues addressed may rapidly become irrelevant or at least not as relevant as originally believed. Finally, big digital companies, often, do not lead to a reduction of consumer welfare in markets where users already pay nothing for quite sophisticated services that they receive.
As a result, to challenge them, a new foundation for antitrust (one that would allow enforcers to consider reductions of total surplus on all sides of the market) would have to be developed, in order to make sure that what is prohibited is indeed (total) welfare reducing.
This has led to a globally growing interest and legislative efforts to discipline the market power of the big platforms in the digital economy and in particular a discussion is under way as to the need to integrate the antitrust toolkit with ex ante prohibitions to prevent anti- competitive practices by dominant platforms.
The one-day online symposium will discuss the following major themes:
- What is the Indian experience with antitrust enforcement in the digital economy? What type of practice have been addressed and how successful have been (or could be) the remedies devised by the Competition Commission (CCI)?
- Is Indian competition law sufficient to address the challenges associated to the most common anticompetitive practices of the big digital platforms? Pros and cons. Would ex-ante regulation be necessary and in case what type of institutional structure should be needed?
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Who should Attend?
Government Officials, Industry Personnel, Lawyers, Policy Makers, Regulators, Academicians and Students
Subject
- Panel I: Assessment of Indian Competition Law Enforcement in Digital Markets
- Panel II: Learning from International Experience and Calibrating the Enforcement of Competition Law
Registration
- Register for the symposium through the link given at the end of this post.
- Registration for the Symposium is free.
Registration Deadline
July 10th, 2021
Contact Information
- Ashita Allamraju:
e-Mail ID: ashita.allamraju@bennett.edu.in
Contact Number: 9866692790 - Praveen Tripathi: praveen.tripathi@bennett.edu.in
Click here for more information.
Click here to register for the symposium.
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