Author: Christian Bergqvist
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
A margin squeeze is an exclusionary abuse which occurs when a vertically integrated telecoms operator creates a disparity between upstream and downstream prices with the intention of squeezing an access competitor's profits. The purpose of such pricing is either to increase the latter's entry costs, delay profitability or limit their ability to remain or expand on markets. However, traditional market definitions are being challenged by (1) the technological convergence of services and (2) innovative product offerings taking advantage of this convergence. Consumers now routinely purchase a bundle of telecoms services with a single payment (known as "quad play"), including fixed and mobile voice calls, broadband connectivity, and premium broadcasting content. How should such unilateral conduct be assessed ex post by a competition authority under Article 102 TFEU? We suggest that convergence and innovation present both theoretical and practical difficulties for assessing "muddled margins" on telecoms markets. New and different enforcement approaches to exclusion will have to be formulated within the Article 102 framework and tested in the Courts. This may even require abstaining from applying Article 102 TFEU during material periods of convergence, and confining ex post enforcement activity to sector regulation, even when this is inferior for safeguarding effective competition.
Author: Anna Renata Pisarkiewicz
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041162720
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 378
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Book Description
Margin squeeze is a form of abuse of a dominant position in which a vertically integrated company reduces the margin between the price charged to competitors and the price charged to consumers, which can have the effect of excluding a competitor from the market. In the decade or so since the liberalisation of network industries, margin squeeze has become a major source of concern among competition authorities and courts, particularly pronounced in the electronic communications sector. Because some of the adopted decisions show significant inconsistencies in approach, and legal certainty remains elusive in this area, this book which provides an extremely thorough analysis is both timely and of great practical value. The author provides an in-depth examination of margin squeeze allegations in the electronic communications sector with a view to developing a more advanced and comprehensive analysis of principles which should guide ex post assessment of margin squeeze. Issues and topics covered include: – scope of intervention in margin squeeze cases both for national regulatory and national competition authorities; – conditions for sanctioning margin squeeze under Article 102; – methodological and practical difficulties in identifying a margin squeeze; – methodology employed in margin squeeze cases and its regulatory aspects; – assessment of the ability and incentives of regulated firms to engage in a margin squeeze; and – situations when competition law is used to address the deficits of regulation and regulatory failures. It also includes a critical comparison of the vertical foreclosure analysis undertaken in margin squeeze cases with the approach adopted in the EU Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. Throughout the analysis, margin squeeze treatment in the European Union and its Member States is examined in light of the diverging approach adopted by the US Supreme Court. The increasing complexity of the electronic communications market can only further confound an already complex assessment of price squeezes, and one can expect that claims of anticompetitive margin squeeze in liberalised network industries will continue to be high on the enforcement agenda of competition authorities for years to come. In light of the need for a coherent, or at least predictable, sentencing policy to provide relative legal certainty, the research in this book proves invaluable. The analysis and conclusions discussed in this book will be welcomed by policymakers, regulators, and lawyers working in the areas of competition law and electronic communications law.
Author: Germain Gaudin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
We study the implementation of 'reasonably efficient operator' margin squeeze tests by National Regulatory Authorities in European telecommunications markets. We provide a theoretical framework in which we show how regulatory authorities deal with the asymmetries between entrants and incumbents by adjusting the 'equally efficient operator' margin squeeze test used in competition policy. Using this framework, we build a benchmark of implementation choices by inspecting authorities' guidelines, market analyses and decisions. We find that some implementation choices are very similar across authorities' decisions, whereas some others display a strong heterogeneity.
Author: Ramin Silvan Gohari
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A margin squeeze occurs when a vertically integrated company, dominant in the supply of an indispensable upstream input, pursues a pricing policy which prevents downstream competitors from trading profitably, thereby leading to their ultimate exclusion from the downstream market.In the telecommunications sector, where large ex-State firms still enjoy considerable market power, margin squeeze has long been frequent. Interestingly, the United States and the European Union have tackled this problem in considerably different ways. Dismayed by the idea of an antitrust court intervening in a company's price setting, the US Supreme Court held that margin squeeze was exclusively the domain of regulation. Conversely, the Court of Justice of the European Union has endorsed a modern economics-based approach enabling competition authorities to engage in a coherent and verifiable antitrust assessment of the price differentials that potentially amount to a margin squeeze.This paper will argue that (1) the economics-based approach is the right solution in the European context, but that (2) this approach will only lead to convincing results if it includes a rigorous and transparent analysis of the effects on competition and consumers.
Author: Danmark. IT- og Telestyrelsen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Author: Paul de Bijl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139435779
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
This book analyses telecommunications markets from early to mature competition, filling the gap between the existing economic literature on competition and the real-life application of theory to policy. Paul De Bijl and Martin Peitz focus on both the transitory and the persistent asymmetries between telephone companies, investigating the extent to which access price and retail price regulation stimulate both short- and long-term competition. They explore and compare various settings, such as non-linear versus linear pricing, facilities-based versus unbundling-based or carrier-select-based competition, non-segmented versus segmented markets. On the basis of their analysis, De Bijl and Peitz then formulate guidelines for policy. This book is a valuable resource for academics, regulators and telecommunications professionals. It is accompanied by simulation programs devised by the authors both to establish and to illustrate their results.
Author: Hank Intven
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 350
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Book Description
Author: Johannes M. Bauer
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 0857939858
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 603
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Book Description
The Internet is connecting an increasing number of individuals, organizations, and devices into global networks of information flows. It is accelerating the dynamics of innovation in the digital economy, affecting the nature and intensity of competition, and enabling private companies, governments, and the non-profit sector to develop new business models. In this new ecosystem many of the theoretical assumptions and historical observations upon which economics rests are altered and need critical reassessment.
Author: Giuliano Amato
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN: 1901362299
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 148
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Book Description
Examines dilemmas surrounding antitrust law and public and private power and the ways in which these problems have been addressed by legislatures and courts in the US and in Europe. Offers sometimes controversial observations on the history and doctrines of antitrust law, and conclusions as to how successfully the dilemma is being managed by the economies of the US and Europe. Amato is head of the Italian Antitrust Authority, a professor of law at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and a former Prime Minister of Italy. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author: Mihail C. Roco
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401703590
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 477
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Book Description
M. C. Roco and W.S. Bainbridge In the early decades of the 21st century, concentrated efforts can unify science based on the unity of nature, thereby advancing the combination of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and new technologies based in cognitive science. With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, converging in human abilities, societal technologies could achieve a tremendous improvement outcomes, the nation's productivity, and the quality of life. This is a broad, cross cutting, emerging and timely opportunity of interest to individuals, society and humanity in the long term. The phrase "convergent technologies" refers to the synergistic combination of four major "NBIC" (nano-bio-info-cogno) provinces of science and technology, each of which is currently progressing at a rapid rate: (a) nanoscience and nanotechnology; (b) biotechnology and biomedicine, including genetic engineering; (c) information technology, including advanced computing and communications; (d) cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience. Timely and Broad Opportunity. Convergence of diverse technologies is based on material unity at the nanoscale and on technology integration from that scale.
