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Antitrust Enforcement Against Platform Mfns, Jonathan Baker, Fiona M. Scott Morton
Antitrust Enforcement Against Platform Mfns, Jonathan Baker, Fiona M. Scott Morton
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
Antitrust enforcement against anticompetitive platform most favored nations (MFN) provisions (also termed pricing parity provisions) can help protect competition in online markets. An online platform imposes a platform MFN when it requires that providers using its platform not offer their products or services at a lower price on other platforms. These contractual provisions may be employed by online platforms offering hotel and transportation bookings, consumer goods, digital goods, and handmade craft products. They have been the subject of antitrust enforcement in Europe but have drawn only limited antitrust scrutiny in the U.S. Our paper explains why MFNs employed by online …
Evaluating Appropriability Defenses For The Exclusionary Conduct Of Dominant Firms In Innovative Industries, Jonathan Baker
Evaluating Appropriability Defenses For The Exclusionary Conduct Of Dominant Firms In Innovative Industries, Jonathan Baker
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
In response to antitrust cases challenging the exclusionary conduct of dominant firms, some dominant firms offer an “appropriability defense.” This defense is the claim that prohibiting the challenged conduct would lessen the dominant firm’s return to investment in research and development (R&D), undermine that firm’s incentive to innovate, and harm the prospects for industry innovation. An appropriability defense should be questioned, and often rejected, if the dominant firm would be expected to increase its own R&D effort in response to increased R&D by its rivals after liability on a dominant firm is imposed. An analytical framework for determining whether a …