EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

Figure 1: Rise of active monthly users of Instagram after its acquisition by Facebook

Source: Richter [online], 2020 Numerous attempts to address the killer acquisitions problem can be observed. For example, in 2020 the Commission announced its new approach to Article 22 of the EUMR. A new policy meant that the EC would accept referral requests from national competition authorities under Article 22 EUMR to investigate transactions that do not meet national or EU notification thresholds, but could seriously harm competition (see: Communication from the Commission. Commission Guidance on the application of the referral mechanism set out in Article 22 of the Merger Regulation to certain categories of cases, OJ C 113, 31.3.2021, p. 1–6 .). The debate on preventing killer acquisitions by digital platforms with significantmarket power, suchasGoogle,Amazon, Facebook,Apple and Microsoft (“GAFAM”) has been ongoing, also in the context of the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector (Digital Markets Act). COM/2020/842 final (the “DMA”) (see, for example: European Parliament [online], 2021). Some EU Member States (Germany, Austria) have already introduced an additional transaction value criterion into their merger control systems. However, it is still not clear what EU competition policy should be adopted towards the acquisitions of start-ups by GAFAM. Should the EU competition policy address such acquisitions, despite the fact that they often go beyond

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