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Kopplingsförbehåll på digitala plattformar - En studie i ljuset av kommissionens utredning av Facebook Marketplace

Almgren Jensen, Nora LU (2023) LAGF03 20231
Department of Law
Faculty of Law
Abstract
Tying and its relation to competition law and the prohibition on abuse of a dominant position is well-studied. However, what puts the phenomenon in a new context is its occurrence within the market for digital platforms. This has recently been brought to light in connection with the investigation conducted by the European Commission concerning the company Meta and their digital platform Facebook Marketplace. The commission has raised two objections regarding actions through which they believe the company has breached EU antitrust rules and the prohibition of abuse of dominant position. Firstly, it concerns the tying of the online advertising platform Facebook Marketplace to their social networking platform Facebook. Secondly, it concerns... (More)
Tying and its relation to competition law and the prohibition on abuse of a dominant position is well-studied. However, what puts the phenomenon in a new context is its occurrence within the market for digital platforms. This has recently been brought to light in connection with the investigation conducted by the European Commission concerning the company Meta and their digital platform Facebook Marketplace. The commission has raised two objections regarding actions through which they believe the company has breached EU antitrust rules and the prohibition of abuse of dominant position. Firstly, it concerns the tying of the online advertising platform Facebook Marketplace to their social networking platform Facebook. Secondly, it concerns the implementation of unfair trading conditions regarding the collection of ad-related data from competitors. In light of the first of the two objections, an examination has been conducted, written with an EU-legal and legal dogmatic method, to ascertain the content and application of the prohibition on abuse of a dominant position through tying on digital platforms. This is done to subsequently apply this analysis to the case of Facebook Marketplace in order to identify the legal issues and considerations that may come to the forefront in the commission's further investigation. The essay concludes that there are several questions that, in light of case law and the distinct aspects of the market for digital platforms, will be particularly important for the commission to consider. Some uncertainty arises in the application of the criteria developed in practice for determining abusive tying. Essentially, this concerns how separate products should be identified when provided on the same platform, to what extent the consumer needs to be considered coerced to the tied product and what anti-competitive effect distribution advantages can be presumed to have in the case at hand. Overall, the various questions can be formulated into a conjoint question of how the commission will draw the line between what constitutes lawful expansion strategies within the framework of competition on merits, and what constitutes tying of services and a distortion of competition through unreasonable distribution advantages. (Less)
Abstract (Swedish)
Kopplingsförbehåll och dess relation till konkurrensrätten och förbudet mot missbruk av dominerande ställning är väl studerat. Något som dock sätter fenomenet i en ny kontext är dess förekomst inom marknaden för digitala plattformar. Detta har nyligen förts fram i ljuset med anledning av den utredning som Europeiska Kommissionen bedriver om företaget Meta och deras digitala plattform Facebook Marketplace. Kommissionen har meddelat två invändningar om ageranden genom vilka de anser att företaget bryter mot konkurrensrättslig reglering och förbudet mot missbruk av dominerande ställning. Dels rör det kopplandet av plattformen för onlineannonsering Facebook Marketplace till deras sociala nätverksplattform Facebook. Dels rör det implementerande... (More)
Kopplingsförbehåll och dess relation till konkurrensrätten och förbudet mot missbruk av dominerande ställning är väl studerat. Något som dock sätter fenomenet i en ny kontext är dess förekomst inom marknaden för digitala plattformar. Detta har nyligen förts fram i ljuset med anledning av den utredning som Europeiska Kommissionen bedriver om företaget Meta och deras digitala plattform Facebook Marketplace. Kommissionen har meddelat två invändningar om ageranden genom vilka de anser att företaget bryter mot konkurrensrättslig reglering och förbudet mot missbruk av dominerande ställning. Dels rör det kopplandet av plattformen för onlineannonsering Facebook Marketplace till deras sociala nätverksplattform Facebook. Dels rör det implementerande av orättvisa handelsvillkor om insamling av annonsrelaterade data från konkurrenter. I ljuset av den första av de två invändningarna har en undersökning genomförts, skriven med en EU-rättslig samt rättsdogmatisk metod, för att utröna innehållet och tillämpningen av förbudet mot missbruk av dominerande ställning genom kopplingsförbehåll på digitala plattformar. Detta för att därefter applicera denna granskning på fallet med Facebook Marketplace i syfte att identifiera vilka juridiska spörsmål och övervägningar som kan komma att ställas på sin spets i kommissionens vidare utredning. Uppsatsen kommer fram till att det finns en rad frågor som mot bakgrund av praxis och de särskilda aspekterna av marknaden för digitala plattformar kommer bli särskilt angelägna för kommissionen att betänka. Viss oklarhet uppstår vid tillämpning av de i praxis framarbetade kriterierna för konstaterande av missbrukande kopplingsförbehåll. Främst gällande hur separata produkter ska identifieras när de tillhandahålls på samma plattform, i vilken mån konsumenten behöver ses tvingad till den kopplade produkten och vilken konkurrenshämmande effekt distributionsfördelar kan tänkas få i fallet i fråga. Sammantaget kan de olika spörsmålen formuleras i en samfälld fråga om hur kommissionen ska dra skiljelinjen mellan vad som utgör tillåtna expansions- strategier inom ramen för konkurrens på meriter, och vad som utgör ett kopplande av tjänster och en snedvridning av konkurrens genom orimliga distributionsfördelar. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Almgren Jensen, Nora LU
supervisor
organization
course
LAGF03 20231
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Konkurrensrätt, missbruk av dominerande ställning, kopplingsförbehåll, digitala plattformar
language
Swedish
id
9116033
date added to LUP
2023-06-29 09:34:00
date last changed
2023-06-29 09:34:00
@misc{9116033,
  abstract     = {{Tying and its relation to competition law and the prohibition on abuse of a dominant position is well-studied. However, what puts the phenomenon in a new context is its occurrence within the market for digital platforms. This has recently been brought to light in connection with the investigation conducted by the European Commission concerning the company Meta and their digital platform Facebook Marketplace. The commission has raised two objections regarding actions through which they believe the company has breached EU antitrust rules and the prohibition of abuse of dominant position. Firstly, it concerns the tying of the online advertising platform Facebook Marketplace to their social networking platform Facebook. Secondly, it concerns the implementation of unfair trading conditions regarding the collection of ad-related data from competitors. In light of the first of the two objections, an examination has been conducted, written with an EU-legal and legal dogmatic method, to ascertain the content and application of the prohibition on abuse of a dominant position through tying on digital platforms. This is done to subsequently apply this analysis to the case of Facebook Marketplace in order to identify the legal issues and considerations that may come to the forefront in the commission's further investigation. The essay concludes that there are several questions that, in light of case law and the distinct aspects of the market for digital platforms, will be particularly important for the commission to consider. Some uncertainty arises in the application of the criteria developed in practice for determining abusive tying. Essentially, this concerns how separate products should be identified when provided on the same platform, to what extent the consumer needs to be considered coerced to the tied product and what anti-competitive effect distribution advantages can be presumed to have in the case at hand. Overall, the various questions can be formulated into a conjoint question of how the commission will draw the line between what constitutes lawful expansion strategies within the framework of competition on merits, and what constitutes tying of services and a distortion of competition through unreasonable distribution advantages.}},
  author       = {{Almgren Jensen, Nora}},
  language     = {{swe}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Kopplingsförbehåll på digitala plattformar - En studie i ljuset av kommissionens utredning av Facebook Marketplace}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}