EU-Merger Control in Big Data-Related Mergers (Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper, No. 19-05), 2019, 74
The main focus of the Commission’s last decade decisional practice in big data mergers has been on identifying possible harming effects of the control over exclusive information (absolute foreclosure scenario). Thereby it has centred its analysis on the assessment of the overall availability of data post-merger and thus mostly found no concerns due to the ubiquity and non-rivalrous nature of data. However these considerations were too short-sighted as additional competition concerns may arise when the accumulation of large piles of data from a huge multitude of sources by digital conglomerates leads to such an advantage that competitors will not be able to match anymore, increasing the likelihood of further anti-competitive strategies (relative foreclosure scenario). Accordingly, the paper firstly addresses the need for information centric reference points for the analysis of data induced significant impediments of competition (SIEC). It then analyses the approach taken by the Commission so far, identifies the shortcomings and establishes a theory of harm that takes the efficiency offense doctrine and the financial power and portfolio effect theories of harm as a reference point and relate it to a relative foreclosure strategy of the merged group that is specific to data induced SIEC. The distinction of these two foreclosure scenario levels serves as the basis for further discussion on adequate remedies to tackle the two types of data-induced harming effects. The paper then indulges into the intersection of competition law and data protection law and analyses the potential need for a distinction between personal and non-personal data due to the fact that data protection law might be considered a normative factual remedy that renders personal data specific competition concerns post-merger unnecessary. This is then followed by a parallel analysis related to ex-ante data access regimes being normative factual remedies, e.g. the access to account rule under the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2). It then stresses the need for considering formal elements such as conditional remedies that tackle potential issues of a lack of foreseeability due to high market dynamics before examining the efficiency and feasibility of a data sharing commitment for both absolute and relative foreclosure scenarios. As essential facility considerations cannot be analogously applied in relative foreclosure cases we take recourse to criteria that were established for measuring conglomerate power structures. Accordingly in relative foreclosure scenario cases we establish two requirements that need to be fulfilled by the undertaking seeking access to data in order to confine a potential erga omnes right and make data sharing legally obtainable.
