In recent years, large digital platforms have been in the doghouse of antitrust decision-makers worldwide. Antitrust regulators agree, urgent intervention is needed. Interestingly, it is the plight of victimized suppliers--of merchants, app developers, publishers, platform labourers, and the like, who are upstream in the value chain--that has topped the policy agenda, prompting scrutiny of an almost unprecedented intensity. Amid such anxieties, Antitrust and Upstream Platform Power Plays asks a somewhat provocative question: are upstream platform power plays really 'competition problems', and ones for antitrust, at that?
The obvious answer--'yes'--is deceptively simple for a number of reasons. First, it contradicts contemporary antitrust's single-minded focus on consumers, which has all but erased supplier exploitation in the brick-and-mortar economy from the policy's radar. Second, the wider antitrust community remains bitterly divided when it comes to judging platform practices. In addition, if any consensus could be had, it would almost certainly confirm the long-standing tenet that antitrust cannot be about supplier welfare, as such. These paradoxes call for a policy introspection--precisely what this book provides.
The analysis offered in
Antitrust and Upstream Platform Power Plays is altogether normative, theoretical, and practical. Normative because it engages in a supplier-mindful soul-searching exercise, which advances our understanding of antitrust's foundations; theoretical as it sheds multidisciplinary insights on upstream effects in the platform economy and develops new frameworks for rationalizing them; and practical since it takes a deep dive into the complex antitrust machinery while staying attuned to other available levers of public action.
Answering a compelling question with an equally compelling answer, this work will appeal to scholars and policymakers worldwide with a particular interest in platform regulation, antitrust, and powerful digital platforms.
A.K. von Moltke, Legal adviser, Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT) & Associate, University of Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy (CCLP), Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications & University of Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy
A.K. von Moltke is a legal adviser at the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT) in Brussels. He is also an associate at the University of Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy (CCLP). Prior to joining the BIPT, von Moltke was part of a group of researchers at the University of Oxford awarded funding by the Leverhulme Trust to conduct a study on the relationship between competition policy and wealth distribution. Von Moltke holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and has also worked in private practice with a leading US law firm in Brussels.
