Self-Preferencing in Digital Platforms: A Competition Law Analysis of Preferential Treatment and the Requirements for Ex-Ante Regulations

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Department of International Trade Law & Intellectual Property and Cyberspace Law, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

10.22059/jolt.2024.373201.1007284

Abstract

Following the entry of a digital platform operator into the intra-platform market, it is likely that the platform will privilege its affiliated product over the third-party products. This paper attempts to answer whether all forms of preferential treatment should be prohibited and considered anti-competitive, and whether the document proposed by Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace in 2019 is effective in preventing online differentiated treatment. The findings indicate that due to the variety of dominant and non-dominant platforms’ practices, their different effects and the possibility of reaping dynamic efficiency, there is no basis to deviate from the rule of reason in the competition assessment of self-preferencing, and Iran’s Council has gone beyond the principles of competition law by applying the per se illegality rule to any form of self-preferencing. To prevent the anti-competitive effects of self-preferencing and to address the drawbacks of the recent competition document of Iran’s Council, this article suggests the enactment of a new legislation which defines gatekeeper platforms and imposes certain ex-ante obligations on gatekeeper platforms operating in Iran, namely the separation of their horizontal and vertical (intra-platform) operations, setting out the search ranking parameters, and clarifying the conditions for blocking access to the platform.

Keywords

References

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Private Law
Volume 21, Issue 1
Spring $ Summer
April 2024
Pages 91-107

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