EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

Prague, Czechia

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

The recent EU antitrust regulation of digital platforms, its enforcement and pressure from below Kristýna Menzelová Charles University Faculty of Law, Department of Labour Law and Social Security Law náměstí Curieových 901/7, Prague, 116 40 Czechia e-mail: kristyna.menzelova@centrum.cz Abstract The power of the platform’s providers such as Amazon, Google Play or Booking is still rising and the existing standard EU antitrust rules do not seem to be sufficient. Consequently, the P2B Regulation, a new complementary regulation, was adopted. In addition to the regulation from above, individuals and civic movements are gaining ground to battle against the power of these companies as well. The paper discusses the way of enforcement of the P2B Regulation in the selected Member States and the shortcomings of the P2B Regulation. In addition, the paper is focused on the civic activities and collective actions of business users that try together to acquire higher bargaining power against the platform and reach better (working) conditions. Keywords: digital platforms, horizontal agreements of business users, P2B regulation JEL Classification: K210 1. Introduction The Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services, known as the P2B Regulation, was adopted to limit several unfair practices that the providers of online intermediation services (platforms) apply against the business users and to bring more transparency to the providers’ platforms. In practice, it has an impact on the e-commerce marketplaces, app stores and social media, namely Google Play, Booking or Amazon. Besides, the P2B Regulation imposes several transparency duties on the providers of online search engine such as Google in order to improve the position of corporate website users. The duties that the P2B Regulation sets out to the providers of online intermediation services focus in part on the form of the terms and conditions (clear, understandable, and easily available) and in part on the material content

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