The long-awaited Google Shopping judgment is out (see the press release here and the full decision here). The General Court has dismissed Google’s action almost in its entirety, upholding the fine of € 2.42 billion that the EU Commission issued in 2017 on the company for abusing its dominance as a search engine by favouring…

Recent developments in digitalization have triggered the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) to scrutinize more closely e-marketplace business models. The TCA has carried out a sector inquiry on e-marketplaces for this purpose and a preliminary report (“Report”) has been published on the official website of the TCA on May 7, 2021, in which a wide range…

On 10 April 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), China’s competition authority responsible for the enforcement of the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), announced the imposition of CNY 18 billion fine on Alibaba for abusing its dominant position on the e-commerce platform services market. The decision concludes the investigation launched at the end of 2020…

Recently, Google and Apple have changed their policy for targeted online advertising. Privacy-conscious users have been switching to alternatives for years, however, completely avoiding being tracked by online tech giants is virtually impossible. Nevertheless, the online ad industry has grown tremendously in the last decade, and targeted behavioural advertising has become ubiquitous in the online…

Large platforms acting as “digital gatekeepers” are increasingly drawing competition agencies’ attention. While no legal definition of a “gatekeeper” has been laid down yet,[1] this concept is meant to cover platforms that rely on significant network effects. A “gatekeeper” may also be a go-between, controlling access from one point to another. However, gatekeepers may refuse…

“I’ve been wondering how to give a metaphor because these are two quite complex proposals. And the best thing I came to think of was the first-ever traffic light that brought order in the streets, that was actually in the US, in Cleveland Ohio. And that was invented as a response to a major technological…

Background The changing market dynamics in the digital era have raised several concerns with competition regulators across the world, triggering a host of studies for better understanding the issue. In doing its part, the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) released the ‘Market Study on E-commerce in India’ highlighting various regulatory issues in the e-commerce market….

On 07.11.2019, the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) concluded its preliminary inquiry regarding Google’s[1] bidding system and decided not to initiate a full-fledged investigation. Said preliminary inquiry had been initiated upon a 28.02.2019 dated complaint made with confidentiality request claiming that: Google is in dominant position in search services, Google’s Shopping Unit and AdWords are crucial…

The Davies Forecast of Top 5 Trends and Issues for Canadian Competition Law in 2020 Jim Dinning, Anita Banicevic and Mark Katz Here is Davies’ annual forecast of Canadian competition law developments for the year ahead. 1. FOCUS ON THE DIGITAL ECONOMY Given the Competition Bureau’s stated priorities during the tenure of current Commissioner of…

On July 17, 2019, the German Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office, “FCO”) terminated its dominance probe into Amazon’s business terms towards sellers on its marketplace after Amazon agreed to various changes, see press release here here. Amazon will implement the changes within 30 days, not only in Germany, but for all of its marketplaces in Europe,…