Working Group on Competition Economics discusses effects of vertical mergers, algorithms and abusive data processing conditions

On 13 December 2019 the Working Group on Competition Economics held its fourth meeting in Bonn where Bundeskartellamt staff and academics specialising in industrial economics and competition policy discussed topical competition economics issues. The topics on this year’s agenda were:

• Mergers between companies active on different levels of the supply chain, which can result in increased costs for competitors (raising rivals’ costs),
• Joint study of the Bundeskartellamt and the French Autorité de la concurrence on algorithms and competition and
• Categorization under competition law of an overly extensive collection and use of data.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “A particularly important topic of economic research are the effects of algorithms on competition. Together with the French competition authority we have just recently presented a comprehensive study on the topic. Regular exchange with academic researchers is particularly important in this rapidly developing area in order to keep up to date.”

“Dominant companies should not abuse their market power e.g. by exploiting their customers, and this also applies to digital markets. Although at first sight many offers on digital markets seem free of charge for users, the collection and use of users’ data can be excessive. The discussion with researchers helps to examine the economic relationship between market power and data protection levels in further depth.”

The following academics took part in the fourth meeting of the Working Group on Competition Economics: Professor Dr Stefan Bühler (University of St. Gallen), Professor Dr Justus Haucap (Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics), Professor Dr Roman Inderst (Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main) and Professor Dr Markus Reisinger (Frankfurt School of Finance & Management).