Richard J Brown, Ingrid Rogers and Stephen Whitfield of the Competition Department recently wrote an article for the Competition Law Journal on the impact of data on EU merger control.
Competition authorities have increasingly focused on data-related mergers, in the broader context of a general competition law focus on the ‘FAANGs’ (i.e., Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) and the wider tech sector.
The article examines the impact of data on EU merger control and explores the theories of harm and legal frameworks which have been applied and developed in considering data-related competition concerns. The authors conclude that data-related mergers should no longer be assessed by reference to traditional economic indicators such as market shares and concentration levels only, but rather also in the context of the broader global competition law focus on big tech.
The article was published in the December 2019 issue of the Competition Law Journal, which can be found here (subscription only).
