EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

Prague, Czechia

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

of economic and consumer approach to AT, we can observe attempts to include growth of wages and employment and reduction of income inequality in the catalogue of goals. Thus, AT is in danger of eroding under the “crossfire” from these two directions, of losing its coherence and, above all, its proven functionality. Traditional target conflicts (Bejček, 2007, p. 663 ff.; Zimmer et al. ) have been joined in recent years by new and perhaps even more controversial conflicts than before. 2. Issues Falling under “genuine” AT Scrutiny and the “Rest” The competition issues arising from economic, social, and technological developments (“endogenous”, or “internal”, “inside”, possibly “own” challenges) that I address here include, among others, the evaluation of digital platforms and their operators, pricing algorithms, killing acquisitions, and one particular topic, the appropriate AT response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I only briefly describe and summarize whether and how the traditional AT-toolbox could be used or changed in these areas. I deal in some detail with the second area of so-called “exogenous” (or “imported”, “external”, “outside”, possibly “foreign”) challenges, which in my opinion threaten the essence and very functionality of AT more than endogenous challenges. In contrast, the burden of “imported”, “external”, or “exogenous” challenges is put on the shoulders of AT inorganically. They arise as if outside the scope of the AT, or affect its scope only marginally, or they are artificially imposed into the remit of the AT. The AT should take them into account only marginally, if at all, as they are an inorganic tool for achieving broader political and ideological goals only artificially “grafted” onto protection of competition. Among these, I include in particular the so-called sustainability, gender considerations in competition assessment, and privacy protection. Sustainability is a very broad word that hardly might be labelled as a true concept because of its fuzziness, its ability to opportunistically draw in (or, on the contrary, exclude) almost anything that just fits or doesn’t. Far from being just about environmental issues, it has a much broader scope, which in some conceptions has directly social engineering ambitions that cannot remain without impact on competition law. Even AT law has apparently not escaped the attention of the gendered “intellectual fashion” that has already permeated many areas of life. The question is how to distinguish between the attractive and short-lived efforts to be “in” and the really relevant aspects with an impact on competition law and how not to contaminate AT scrutiny with disparate and inappropriate aspects instead of addressing them at the general-policy level by legislative means.

351