Law Commons^™

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 …