Download or read book Robust Exclusion and Market Division Through Loyalty Discounts written by Einer Elhauge and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We show that loyalty discounts create an externality among buyers because each buyer who signs a loyalty discount contract softens competition and raises prices for all buyers. This externality can enable an incumbent to use loyalty discounts to effectively divide the market with its rival and raise prices. If loyalty discounts also include a buyer commitment to buy from the incumbent, then loyalty discounts can also deter entry under conditions in which ordinary exclusive dealing cannot. With or without buyer commitment, loyalty discounts will increase profits while reducing consumer welfare and total welfare as long as enough buyers exist and the entrant does not have too large a cost advantage. These propositions are true even if the entrant is more efficient and the loyalty discounts are above cost and cover less than half the market. We also prove that these propositions hold without assuming economies of scale, downstream competition, buyer switching costs, financial constraints, limits on rival expandability, or any intra-product bundle of contestable and incontestable demand.
Download or read book Robust Exclusion Through Loyalty Discounts written by Einer Elhauge and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Abstract:We consider loyalty discounts whereby the seller promises to give buyers who commit to buy from it a lower price than the seller gives to uncommitted buyers. We show that an incumbent seller can use loyalty discounts to soften price competition between itself and a rival, which raises market prices to all buyers. Each individual buyer's agreement to a loyalty discount externalizes most of the harm of that individual agreement onto all the other buyers. The resulting externality among buyers makes it possible for an incumbent to induce buyers to sign these contracts even if they reduce buyer and total welfare. Thus, if the entrant cost advantage is not too large, we prove that with a sufficient number of buyers, there does not exist any equilibrium in which at least some buyers do not sign loyalty discount contracts, and there exists an equilibrium in which all buyers sign and the rival is foreclosed from entry. As a result, with a sufficient number of buyers, an incumbent can use loyalty discounts to increase its profit and decrease both buyer and total welfare. Further, the necessary number of buyers can be as few as three. These effects occur even in the absence of economies of scale in production and even if the buyers are notintermediaries who compete with each other in a downstream market"--John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business web site.
Download or read book Robust Exclusion Through Loyalty Discounts with Buyer Commitment written by Einer Elhauge and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fidelity Rebates in Competition Law written by Miroslava Marinova and published by Kluwer Law International B.V.. This book was released on 2018-11-07 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the treatment of fdelity rebates as one of the most controversial topics in EU competition law. The controversy arose from the lack of clarity as to how to distinguish between rebates that constitute a legitimate business practice and those that might have anticompetitive e?ects, as the same type of rebates could be pro-competitive or anticompetitive depending on their e?ects on competition. This book clarifes the appropriate treatment of fdelity rebates under EU competition law by o?ering original insights on the way in which abusive rebates should be identifed, taking into account the wealth of EU case law in this area, the economics' literature and the perspective of US antitrust law. The critical discussion on the case law is centred on the idea as to whether the as efcient competitor (AEC) test is an important part of the assessment of fdelity rebates and in which circumstances it could be used as one tool among others. The analysis treats such issues and topics as the following: – What motivated the EU Courts to treat fdelity rebates as illegal ‘by object'? – Why has this case law drawn so much criticism from academics and other commentators? – What can we learn from the economic theories of exclusive dealing and fdelity rebates, and whether the strict approach of the Courts can be supported by economic empirical studies? – What is the meaning attached to the notion of an ‘e?ects-based' approach as an expression of the reform of Article 102? – Why is the controversy regarding the treatment of fdelity rebates still a live issue after the Intel and the Post Danmark II judgments? – In which circumstances the price-cost test can be used as a reliable tool to distinguish between anticompetitive and pro-competitive fdelity rebates? – Can we evaluate the e?ect of fdelity rebates without necessarily carrying out a price-cost test? – Can we consider the AEC test as a single unifying test for all types of exclusionary abuses? – What can we learn about the application of the AEC test in fdelity rebate cases from the recent US case law? A concluding chapter provides an original perspective and also policy recommendations on how the abusive character of fdelity rebates should be assessed including an appropriate legal test that is administrable, creates predictability and legal certainty and minimises the risk of errors and the cost of those mistakes. This book takes a giant step towards improving the understanding of the legal treatment of fdelity rebates and understanding as to whether the treatment of fdelity rebates could be e?ects-based, without necessarily carrying out an AEC test. It will also contribute signifcantly to the practical work of enforcement agencies, courts and private entities and their advisors. book's parallel study of US and EU competition law.
Download or read book Law and Economics of Article 102 TFEU written by Robert O'Donoghue QC and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 1368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “a reference book in this area of EU competition law and a must-have companion for academics, enforcers and practitioners alike, as well as EU and national judges.” Judge Nils Wahl, Court of Justice of the European Union This seminal text offers an authoritative and integrated treatment of the legal and economic principles that underpin the application of Article 102 TFEU to the behaviour of dominant firms. Traditional concerns of monopoly behaviour, such as predatory pricing, refusals to deal, excessive pricing, tying and bundling, discount practices and unlawful discrimination are treated in detail through a review of the applicable economic principles, the case law and decisional practice and more recent economic and legal writings. In addition, the major constituent elements of Article 102 TFEU, such as market definition, dominance, effect on trade and applicable remedies are considered at length. The third edition involves a net addition of over 250 pages, with a substantial new chapter on Abuses In Digital Platforms, an extensively revised chapter on standards, and virtually all chapters incorporating substantial revisions reflecting key cases such as Intel, MEO, Google Android, Google Shopping, AdSense, Qualcomm.
Download or read book The Analysis Of Competition Policy And Sectoral Regulation written by Martin Peitz and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2014-07-07 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains a selection of papers that were presented at the CRESSE Conferences held in Chania, Crete, from July 6th to 8th, 2012, and in Corfu from July 5th to 7th, 2013. The chapters address current policy issues in competition and regulation. The book contains contributions at the frontier of competition economics and regulation and provides perspectives on recent research findings in the field. Written by experts in their respective fields, the book brings together current thinking on market forces at play in imperfectly competitive industries, how firms use anti-competitive practices to their advantage and how competition policy and regulation can address market failures. It provides an in-depth analysis of various ongoing debates and offers fresh insights in terms of conceptual understanding, empirical findings and policy implications. The book contributes to our understanding of imperfectly competitive markets, anti-competitive practices and competition policy and regulation.
Download or read book FCC Record written by United States. Federal Communications Commission and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 918 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Economics of Loyalty Discounts and Antitrust Law in the United States written by Bruce H. Kobayashi and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Anti competitive Market Division Through Loyalty Discounts Without Buyer Commitment written by Einer Elhauge and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Loyalty Discounts and Naked Exclusion written by Einer Elhauge and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Exclusive Dealing written by Magdalena Laskowska and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently, there has been growing literature on exclusive dealing and loyalty discounts. I posit that any exclusive dealing should be per se illegal, except in case of loyalty discounts, as it excludes competition at least for the time of its duration. Contrary to the legal and economic literature, I state that loyalty discounts should always be legal, except in case of high entry barriers (or high barriers to expansion). If high entry barriers (or high barriers to expansion) occur, I confirm that the US antitrust jurisprudence is appropriate: unless a reference market is foreclosed about over 40%, loyalty discounts are legal. Owing to the legal solution I propose in this paper, enhanced economic results may be achieved: competition gets intensified, and any exclusion of rivals that may arise would result from a strong competitive process.
Download or read book Separating Pro Competitive from Anti Competitive Loyalty Rebates written by Damien Geradin and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its submission to the recent OECD Roundtable on Bundled and Loyalty Discounts and Rebates (the "OECD Roundtable on rebates"), Korea observed that "loyalty discounts are getting growing attention both academically and practically" and that "this issue was now on top of the agendas of many seminars and workshops on competition law, with many papers devoted to the theme." It then explained that this trend was attributable to the fact that loyalty discounts has become an important marketing tool, which raised several competition issues in the process. While discounts or rebates - this paper will generally refer to rebates - have been used by businesses for centuries to sell greater amounts of products to customers, it is true that the compatibility of rebates with competition law has become a particularly acute issue in recent years. There are several reasons for this. These last few years have witnessed several major court judgments in the European Union (the "EU") and the United States (the "US"), which have been abundantly commented upon, hence explaining the large number of papers and seminars devoted to the subject. But, more generally, the assessment of rebates seems to be one of the most unsettled areas of competition law. In the EU, for instance, the decisional practice of the European Commission and the case-law of the Community courts have been harshly criticized as being unnecessarily strict, following a form-based approach that is poorly in line with economics. While these decisions have been sometimes misinterpreted, it is true that they were generally unhelpful in large part due to the fact they focused on the wrong questions. As a response to such criticisms (and more general criticisms about the manner in which Article 82 EC was implemented), the European Commission published in December 2005 a Discussion Paper, which promotes an effects-based approach to the assessment of rebates. While US courts have generally applied an effects-based approach to the assessment of rebates, the case-law is still unsettled, notably in the area of bundled rebates. This certainly led Korea to conclude its OECD submission by stating that "even in jurisdictions such as the US or the EU which have accumulated a considerable amount of enforcement experience regarding loyalty discounting often do not have a clear analysis method regarding this practice." While this observation is in many ways true, there are, however, encouraging signs that EU and US law are converging, and will increasingly do so, around a set of sound legal and economic principles to assess guidelines. Both the EU and the US contributions to the recent OECD Roundtable on rebates emphasize the importance of relying on objective economic criteria for the assessment of rebates. While the views of the European Commission and the US antitrust agencies still diverge on some issues, there seems to be a consensus that a price-cost test should play an important role in screening rebates that can (i.e., are able to) foreclose a dominant firms' rivals to supply one or several customers. There is also a consensus that such tests should only be a component of a broader test that should also determine whether the rebates in question substantially foreclose the relevant market and, in such cases, whether the foreclosure effect can be compensated by efficiencies. While price-cost tests help determining whether the rebates granted can have the effect of foreclosing competitors because the dominant firm's customers cannot turn to alternative suppliers without incurring substantial switching costs, it should also be demonstrated that these customers represent a substantial share of the market to which equally efficient rivals can turn, depriving them of the possibility to profitably enter and/or expand. Moreover, both EU and US law recognize the importance of taking into account in the assessment process the various efficiencies that can be generated by loyalty rebates and the extent to which they can counterbalance foreclosure effects. Against this background, this paper aims at providing a framework - based on sound legal and economic principles - designed to help competition authorities and courts to separate pro-competitive loyalty rebates from anti-competitive ones. It starts with the widely acknowledged view that in the vast majority of cases dominant firms grant rebates to their customers for legitimate reasons, i.e. not to exclude competitors but to engage in legitimate forms of price competition and to realize a variety of efficiencies, as discussed below. In fact, rebates are not only used by dominant firms, but also by firms without any market power and thus unable to exclude competitors. This paper also takes as a starting point the view - which is recognized in the vast majority of antitrust regimes - that the goal of competition law is not the protection of competitors, but the protection of competition. Hence, rebates that cause less efficient firms to lose market share should not be banned as they lack anti-competitive effects. As will be seen below, these rebates enhance consumer welfare as they ensure that customers are served by the most efficient firms and benefit from their more competitive offers.
Download or read book An Evidence based Approach to Exclusive Dealing and Loyalty Discounts written by Joshua D. Wright and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Loyalty Discounts Exclusive Dealing and Bundling written by Assaf Eilat and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The article reviews loyalty rebates, target rebates, exclusive dealing, and bundling, and argues that these are analogous practices that deserve similar competitive analyses and rules. In particular, in the case of all of these practices, at least some marginal units are typically sold below cost. The article shows that the analyses and rules that should apply to all of these practices ought not to depend on their labels, but rather on the monopoly power of the supplier engaged in the practice; whether, in the particular case, exclusion is costless or almost costless; the size of the sanction that the buyer suffers from being disloyal to the monopolist, and whether the sanction makes it impossible for the monopolist's as efficient rivals to compete for the buyer; the degree of market foreclosure, including its effective duration; the presence or absence of any efficiency justifications, and whether the discount is expected to be passed on to consumers. The analysis further highlights how exclusion may well be costless, or almost costless and can be achieved when the monopolist has non-price means of coercing buyers to be loyal. Further, intermediate cases are explored, in which exclusion, though not entirely costless, is nevertheless cheaper to the monopolist than ordinary predatory pricing.
Download or read book Naked Exclusion by a Dominant Supplier written by Patrick DeGraba and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Naked Exclusion by an Input Supplier written by Federal Trade Commission and published by . This book was released on 2014-09-24 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent literature has shown that an incumbent can use exclusive contracts to maintain supra-competitive prices, but only if he completely prevents a more efficient potential entrant from entering, and if the entrant is exogenously prevented from making exclusive offers. Such models cannot explain how exclusive contracts can lower welfare when they do not completely foreclose a small rival, when the rival can make exclusive offers, nor can they identify rudimentary relationships such as how a dominant supplier's size affects his incentive and ability to exclude and lower welfare. I formally model competition between a dominant input supplier and a small rival selling to competing downstream firms. I show that a dominant supplier can pay downstream firms for exclusivity, allowing it to maintain supra-competitive input prices, even when a small rival that is more efficient at serving some portion of the market can make exclusive offers. I also show exclusives need not completely exclude the small rival to cause competitive harm. The payment the dominant supplier makes for exclusivity must equal the incremental rents that the rival's input could generate if exactly one downstream firm sells goods using it.
Download or read book How Loyalty Discounts Can Perversely Discourage Discounting written by Einer Elhauge and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Loyalty discounts are agreements to sell at a lower price to buyers who buy all or most of their purchases from the seller. This article proves that (assuming no efficiency justifications) loyalty discounts can create anticompetitive effects, not only because they can impair rival efficiency, but because loyalty discounts perversely discourage discounting even when they have no effect on rival efficiency. The essential reason, missed in prior work, is that firms using loyalty discounts have less incentive to compete for free buyers, because any price reduction to win sales to free buyers will, given the loyalty discount, also lower prices to loyal buyers. This in turn reduces the incentive of rivals to cut prices, because there will exist an above-cost price that rivals can charge to free buyers without being undercut by the firm using loyalty discounts. These anticompetitive effects occur even if buyers can breach or terminate commitments, and even if the loyalty conditions require no buyer commitments and less than 100% loyalty. These anticompetitive effects also differ from those created by most-favored-nation or price matching clauses, neither of which require the seller to commit to maintain a price difference between loyal and disloyal buyers. Further, I prove that these anticompetitive effects are exacerbated if multiple sellers use loyalty discounts. None of the results depend on switching costs, market differentiation, imperfect competition, or whether the loyalty discount bundles contestable and incontestable demand. Contrary to commonly held views, I prove these anticompetitive effects exist even (1) when all prices are above seller or rival costs; (2) buyers voluntarily agree to the conditions; and (3) discount and foreclosure levels are low, although such low levels do lower the likelihood buyers would agree to anticompetitive loyalty discounts. I also derive formulas for calculating the inflated price levels in each situation. However, because loyalty discounts can have efficiencies, rule of reason analysis remains appropriate.
