…Geo-blocking and online platforms are the next dip in the roller-coaster that is the e-commerce sector enquiry – which is fast gathering pace.

On 24 September 2015 the European Commission announced that it is now launching two public consultations: one on geo-blocking and the other on online platforms.

The consultations’ aim is to identify and categorise potential antitrust problems and other practices which may create barriers to cross-border trade. Of note perhaps is the comment in Director General Laitenberger’s “retour aux sources” speech on 21 September that the competition authorities may use different tools to tackle the same behaviour. The suggestion is that where the behaviour is practised by a dominant undertaking, then competition law armoury may be used while behaviour by non-dominant undertakings may require other “legislative initiatives”. It is becoming clearer that there are certain topics that are very much in or out of the competition law remit of this particular enquiry…

The timeline for the next steps and beyond are summarised below.

Timeline

UK parallel enquiry

In parallel to the above consultations, the UK House of Lords launched its own enquiry into online platforms. The deadline for responding to this enquiry is 16 October 2015.

The aim is to provide a “constructive contribution” to the EU debate. The aim is to identify the benefits that platforms can provide as well as collect data to inform any recommendations for regulatory change that the U.K. may propose.

More questions than answers?

In short, for those involved in the sector, it can fairly be said that lots of people and institutions are currently asking lots of questions – some of which may be at cross purposes. What is less clear at the moment is who is responding and how the responses will in fact be used to inform policy.

Elisabetta Rotondo