Abstract The global diffusion of competition policy has created risks of regulatory fragmentation. These risks have been addressed primarily through legislative and institutional convergence, neglecting whether alignment remains on the books or seeps into enforcement-level learning. This paper examines that question in merger control, using the European Union–Türkiye relationship as an empirical setting in which alignment pressures coexist with enforcement autonomy. Drawing on a hand-coded dataset of all Turkish merger decisions between 1997 and 2025 that cite the European Commission, the study moves beyond counting citations to analyse their substantive depth. Citations are classified as formal, interpretive, or operative based on how heavily Commission practice structures domestic enforcement reasoning. Using regression analysis, the paper explores the institutional and case-level factors associated with deeper engagement. The results reveal a pattern of selective learning. Citation depth is significantly higher when the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) relies on Commission decisions, particularly in core analytical stages like market definition and competitive assessment. Deeper engagement also correlates with industries the TCA independently classifies as technologically complex. These findings suggest that enforcement learning operates through problem-driven analytical borrowing rather than mechanical emulation, highlighting the limits of formal alignment as a proxy for global competition policy convergence.
The European Commission’s revised Market Definition Notice, published in 2024, extends the original 1997 Notice in a number of ways, including by explaining how markets may be defined in the presence of multi-sided platforms. This article builds on the principles in the Notice to provide a practical guide to market definition for multi-sided platforms. We consider the latest European Union and UK case law, including the Commission’s Appstore and eTraveli/Booking decisions and the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal’s judgment in BGL/Comparethemarket, and discuss the merits of the various approaches. In particular, we consider when it is appropriate to define one market or multiple ones, how the SSNIP test can be applied to incorporate network effects across the sides, and how this test can be adjusted if there is a zero price on one side, including through the use of an SSNDQ.
Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act (the "Smartphone Act") seeks to increase competition in the smartphone ecosystem through ex ante regulation. It is best understood as a safety-conscious, dialogue-based variant of ex ante digital regulation; yet precisely those defining features may ultimately constrain its ability to deliver meaningful competitive change. Although the Japan Fair Trade Commission possesses formidable enforcement powers on paper, their practical use is constrained by institutional traditions favouring cooperative enforcement and by geopolitical considerations, specifically the need to avoid antagonising the United States. Early evidence suggests that a regime built around flexibility and cooperation may struggle to change the behaviour of global technology firms. More fundamentally, Japan's experience raises broader questions about whether ex ante digital regulation can succeed without a credible prospect of escalation to formal enforcement measures.
While much attention has been given to the limitations of public competition law enforcement in addressing market failures in the digital economy, the complementary role of private enforcement-particularly through opt-out collective action mechanisms-has received less scrutiny. Yet, in light of the surge in collective actions against Big Tech in the UK, understanding the potential of private litigation to rise as a complement (or even an alternative) to public enforcement is both timely and necessary. This article argues that the UK's regime of opt-out collective actions, while still nascent in its practical application, shows significant potential to complement-and potentially rival-public enforcement in terms of deterrence and access to justice. It offers a timely and critical evaluation of this regime in action, with a particular focus on its application against Big Tech. Section 2 outlines the normative justifications and design features of the UK opt-out collective action mechanisms. Section 3 analyses the UK regime as applied in practice, focusing on key procedural challenges and pending claims. Section 4 offers a critical evaluation and suggests reforms to ensure the regime's continued effectiveness.
This paper examines the objectives of competition policy and revisits the traditional focus on consumer welfare in light of broader economic considerations, arguing that competition policy can be understood as part of a wider framework that contributes to productivity growth, innovation, and economic development; it proposes an analytical approach in which competition policy and industrial policy coexist and interact, highlighting the conditions under which they may be complementary. Drawing on theoretical and empirical contributions, the analysis discusses how market concentration, limited competition, and institutional constraints may affect productivity and innovation, and considers the role of policy coordination alongside the use of both ex-ante and ex-post assessments. Finally, it outlines a set of policy considerations for competition authorities aimed at strengthening coherence with broader development strategies while preserving their institutional role, emphasizing the importance of facilitating long-term economic development.
This article revisits merger efficiencies through six propositions. First, while many transactions fail to deliver, some mergers do generate cost, quality, and scope efficiencies. Secondly, mergers may raise or reduce innovation: theory identifies separating conditions-appropriability, complementarities, and competitive pressure-while the empirical literature increasingly documents both outcomes. Thirdly, mergers can act as an orderly exit mechanism, accelerating the redeployment of capital and assets away from 'zombie' firms when standalone restructuring is implausible. Fourthly, predictable acquisition paths can strengthen start-up entry by improving expected returns to innovation and venture finance. Fifthly, integration can unlock network, data, or capacity-coordination benefits that contracting cannot reliably replicate, especially under uncertainty and multi-year investment. Sixthly, merger policy should recognize these channels with a disciplined evidentiary framework that screens implausible claims yet avoids systematic under-crediting of verifiable efficiencies and dynamic gains. These propositions provide a guide pragmatic, welfare-oriented enforcement. Its adoption implies taking merger efficiencies seriously, not as advocacy, but as economics
This study examines the 'suspended step' of competition damages claims in Greece, identifying multiple institutional constraints that hinder their development alongside underlying policy choices made during implementation of the European Union (EU) Damages Directive and, more recently, the Directive on representative actions. These factors contribute to Greece's weak position in the inter-jurisdictional competition 'game' fostered by the EU legislator with the aim of ensuring effective judicial protection for victims of anticompetitive conduct. Through empirical analysis combined with a law and political economy approach-a key innovation of this article-the study examines both public and private enforcement of competition law, viewing them holistically. This methodology moves beyond traditional optimal enforcement theory to provide a uniquely comprehensive 'law in action' perspective on competition law enforcement institutional design. The findings offer valuable insights for all jurisdictions considering the adoption of mixed public and private enforcement systems for competition law.
This article examines the effectiveness of the Fair Competition Review System (FCRS) of China. The FCRS is a competition impact assessment system of review of laws, regulations, and guidelines to assess their impact on competition. The stated aims of FCRS are to support marketization and a unified national market in China. It also works to curb government power and to encourage market transformation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). FCRS operates, however, in the shadow of the nation's strong industrial policy anchored by its SOEs, which complicates the tension between the objective of competition and China's strong industrial policy. The article considers the substantial progress made in implementing FCRS, examining it in the context of clarity, predictability, and efficiency. It identifies current issues arising from the current implementation, some of which are common with other jurisdictions, but others that result from the unique nature of the Chinese political economy. The article suggests changes to increase the effectiveness of FCRS. It recognizes the enormous effort currently employed in undertaking FCRS, and concludes that if implemented effectively, FCRS has the potential to change significantly the way markets work competitively at all levels in China.
Abuse of economic dependence, or abuse of superior bargaining position, has increasingly been introduced as a standalone prohibition within competition law across jurisdictions. This article explores why such dependence-centred competition rules are adopted, with what policy objectives, and how implementing jurisdictions address the concerns raised about them. It first maps legislative and institutional designs across 34 jurisdictions and identifies 13 systems with explicit provisions for abuse of dependence, operating alongside abuse of dominance. It then discusses the principal concerns surrounding such rules and weighs them against their complementary benefits, taking into account internal safeguards used in practice. This article notes that, while the concerns are reasonable and may justify non-adoption, this does not, in itself, mean that adoption is inherently misguided. It highlights that dependence-centred rules have complementary advantages-bringing the vertical power-over dimension to the centre of power analysis and enabling a more flexible, dynamic assessment of competitive harm-and that, with safeguards, such as structural power and impact screens, the concerns can be mitigated in practice. It concludes that, when so designed, dependence-centred rules can serve as a balanced complement and outlines directions for future research.
This article explores the interaction between competition law and policy and sustainability. It first charts recent developments, which have revitalized an old debate of whether sustainability should play a role in competition law and policy. With a view mainly to the new EC Horizontal Guidelines (2023) this article then examines the normative questions and sheds light on specific legal challenges arising from this interaction like to what extent and under which methodological route should sustainability-agreements fall into the scope of Article 101(3) Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which provides a 'legal exception' to the prohibition in Article 101(1). This article also focuses on specific issues regarding the evaluation of sustainability agreements, such as the meaning of the 'fair share' criterion and the different types of consumer benefits resulting from sustainability agreements. This article also emphasizes the special role that sustainability agreements are expected to have in energy markets. In light of the growing consensus that competition authorities have a key role to play in fostering sustainable development, the analysis draws insights deriving from a comparison with the initiatives taken at the national level by some competition authorities, notably the The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) in the Netherlands, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority, and the CMA in the UK.
Vertical restraints in labour markets are a neglected topic but have taken on importance as the harms caused by labour market restraints have gained greater recognition. These restraints are typically a form of input foreclosure, which refers to action of a downstream buyer of inputs to hinder its competitors from accessing those inputs. But while labour markets are important input markets, there has been little discussion of how input foreclosure can be used to evaluate anticompetitive labour market transactions. This article fills that gap by providing a framework derived from US federal antitrust law for analysing input foreclosure in labour markets.
In 2023, the EU prohibited Booking/eTraveli whilst the UK sought to prohibit Microsoft/Activision Blizzard. In both cases, the other authority allowed the merger. The decisions reveal the existence of two issues: a Disconnect Inconsistency in the prohibitions (between (platform-based) market definition and (ecosystem-level) assessment) and a Static/Dynamic Divide (prohibitions grounded in forward-looking ecosystem concerns and clearances grounded in traditional, static indicators). In light of these observations, a workable market definition is proposed: an ecosystem market is a multi-product, multi-actor system, orchestrated by a central firm, which competes as a unit against other such systems. This definition aligns market boundaries with the merger assessment and provides the authorities with a coherent frame for analysing competition both within and between ecosystems. The analysis leads to five takeaways: (i) the two cases reveal analytical and methodological inconsistencies in the practice of the competition authorities; (ii) the proposed definition can guide the authorities towards legally sound, forward-looking merger control; (iii) qualitative and quantitative tools exist to operationalize ecosystem definition and assessment; (iv) market definition remains legally and practically indispensable for consistency and legal robustness of merger control; and (v) when ecosystems compete, the merger question becomes inherently structural, requiring a focus on market definition.
Of the five cartel (Article 101 TFEU) damage cases that have gone to full trial in the UK BritNed v ABB, Royal Mail & BT v DAF, Granville v Chunghwa, Stellantis v Autoliv, and London Array v Nexans one or both parties' experts gave econometric evidence which was rejected as 'unreliable', 'biased', and 'unusable' with one exception. In this article, I review the case outcomes, what they reveal about the use and limitations of econometrics, and the guidance that they give to economists presenting econometric evidence before the UK courts and the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
Sustainability-related considerations play an increasingly important role in competition assessments, as reflected by the European Commission's 2024-29 mandate situating competition law within the EU's climate and industrial strategy, the Clean Industrial Deal. During this mandate, the European Commission will revise its 2004 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and 2008 Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. Updating the guidelines provides an opportunity to address the relevance of sustainability-related considerations in relation to market definition, competitive assessment, efficiencies, and remedies. We analyse the economic evidence on the role of sustainability-related considerations in merger control, the Commission's case practice, and its published guidance on merger assessments. We discuss challenges and provide practical recommendations to agency staff and practitioners, with the objective of facilitating the incorporation of sustainability-related considerations in the revised guidelines.
Economists have long been arguing about the importance of economic analysis in competition law case assessment to ensure high-quality enforcement. In this article, we empirically investigate the role of economic analysis and evidence used by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in reaching antitrust infringement decisions, from 2000 to 2020. We construct indicators that measure the extent to which economic analysis is utilized and its deviation from the optimal (error-minimizing) level, aiming to understand its role in CMA's decision-making process. We also compare findings across different conduct categories and overall, between CMA and DGCOMP (Directorate-General for Competition). CMA's enforcement record exceeds in quality that of DGCOMP (and other EU and Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) authorities), in terms of relying on an economic approach in assessing conduct types that cannot, according to economic theory, be presumed to be either harmful or benign without detailed case-specific economic assessment.
India's economic liberalization in the early 1990s marked a decisive shift from a controlled regime to a market-driven economy. It was driven by the belief that competitive markets would enhance efficiency, foster entrepreneurship, and expand consumer choice. However, the faith in market forces was tempered by the realization that markets can fail, due to monopolistic practices, information asymmetries, and exploitation. To address these gaps, the Competition Act, 2002 ('the Act') was enacted as the foundation of India's modern competition regime. It aimed to safeguard competition, curb anti-competitive agreements, prevent abuse of dominance, and regulate mergers that threaten market fairness or innovation. The law remains central to ensuring that Indian markets reward merit, promote innovation, and protect consumer welfare.
Competition Law and Policy has long been shaped by the Limited State paradigm, which emphasized minimal government intervention and framed competition enforcement as a narrowly focused, technocratic exercise. However, recent crises-including the 2008 Financial Crisis, the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and geopolitical shifts-have triggered a transition toward the Expansive State. This article makes an original contribution by analysing how the old paradigm shaped Competition Law and Policy, and how its rejection is now challenging the system, necessitating a rethinking of values, priorities, and institutional roles. It argues that beyond traditional enforcement, advocacy must become a core function of competition agencies to ensure competition principles are not overlooked by the Expansive State but remain actively considered in policymaking. The analysis highlights the need to reclaim neglected enforcement areas, address entrenched corporate power, and prevent further market concentration. At the same time, it warns against the risks of political instrumentalization, cautioning against the potential marginalization of Competition Law and Policy. Ultimately, the article calls for an adaptive, forward-looking framework that balances enforcement with evolving public interest considerations, ensuring Competition Law and Policy continues to foster economic dynamism, innovation, and consumer welfare in the Expansive State era.
The article examines how the term 'ecosystem' has been used in the Commission's antitrust, merger, and Digital Markets Act decisions. We analyse 313 uses of the term 'ecosystem' and identify two approaches to defining ecosystems that are present in the Commission's decisions: technological, which focuses on a core service or product, and organizational, which focuses on the company. Next, we identify the characteristics of ecosystems that are emphasized by the Commission, the most frequently cited being the lock-in effect, the enumeration of entities involved in the creation of the ecosystem, the benefits of ecosystems, and switching costs. Next, the variety of the identified meanings and characteristics of the term 'ecosystem' is reconciled with the Commission's revised Notice on the definition of the relevant market. We propose guiding principles on how the Commission's experience with the use of the 'ecosystem' category could be more systematically incorporated into European Union competition law by introducing the category of access markets: markets that serve as gateways to the ecosystem and allow the orchestrators to exercise their technological power by unilaterally deciding who may offer products within the ecosystem and under what conditions.
