On the 28th of November 2007, the Commission adopted the Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. This article illustrates how these guidelines are applied in practice by reviewing the economic analysis undertaken in Google/DoubleClick and TomTom/TeleAtlas, two recent mergers that raised non-horizontal issues. Both cases were subject to an in-depth (Phase 2) investigation and were eventually cleared without conditions. The theories of harm covered both conglomerate issues as well as concerns regarding input foreclosure. These two cases illustrate how the guidelines provide a useful framework for conducting sound economic analysis, both qualitative and quantitative.
Data sharing in hybrid marketplaces with endogenous fee setting
The issue is especially timely given provisions in the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) designed to expand access to data held by large digital platforms. The...