INTRODUCTION
The rapid rise, enduring growth and success of Internet markets and e-commerce platforms have spurred a lively and sometimes heated debate among academics and policy-makers: do Internet markets foster competition or are they prone to concentration, possibly to the point of monopolization?1 Competition economists and lawyers vigorously discuss the peculiarities of these markets and whether traditional rules and interpretations of competition law are sufficient to deal with potential new competition problems.
The cases against search engine Google have received most public and academic attention (e.g., Devine, 2008; Bork and Sidak, 2012; Haucap and Kehder, 2013; Lao, 2013; Manne and Rinehart, 2013; Lianos and Motchenkova, 2013; Edelman, 2015), closely followed by the e-book case against Apple (e.g., Johnson, 2013; Gaudin and White, 2014; De los Santos and Wildenbeest, 2014). In addition, numerous cases concerning vertical restraints in online sales have recently been brought before European courts (for overviews see Vogel, 2012; OECD, 2013; Buccirossi, 2015; ICN, 2015). These vertical restraints include across-platform parity agreements (APPAs), which are a special form of a most-favored customer clause, general bans on online sales or bans on particular platforms, dual pricing systems, and selective and exclusive distribution systems.Among competition lawyers, the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) decision of 13 October 2011 in the Pierre Fabre case has received much attention. In that case the ECJ ruled that an outright ban on Internet sales constituted a hardcore restriction under European competition law or, to be more precise, an infringement by object of Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Following this decision, a discussion has emerged on the legal treatment of vertical restraints in Internet retail markets in general (e.g., OECD, 2013; Bundeskartellamt, 2013).
In the USA, in contrast, vertical restraints in Internet commerce have played much less of a role, reflecting a more lenient approach towards vertical restraints compared to Europe. Instead, net neutrality has been a much more prominent issue than in most European countries. Common to the USA and the EU is the high attention paid to the antitrust proceedings (a) against Google and (b) against Apple in the e-book case.This chapter will discuss recent antitrust cases related to online markets. Before we describe and comment on these cases we will very briefly summarize the particularities of online markets in order to provide a foundation for our analysis. The remainder of the chapter is organized as follows: section 9.2 describes the unique economic characteristics of online markets, before section 9.3 discusses the antitrust allegations and proceedings against Google. Section 9.4 discusses the most prominent cases related to vertical restraints, including the Apple e-book case and the ECJ Pierre Fabre case. Section 9.5 highlights competition issues at the infrastructure level, namely margin or price squeezing of incumbent operators vis-a-vis alternative Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and
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network neutrality. Policy conclusions and further research questions are discussed in the concluding section 9.6.
9.2
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