Chillin'Competition

Under certain circumstances, Article 102 TFEU can only be triggered if it can be shown that an input or platform is indispensable for competition on a neighbouring market. There is some controversy, however, about what these circumstances are. Sometimes (e.g. CBEM-Telemarketing, Bronner) indispensability is required; sometimes, it is not (e.g. Telefonica, TeliaSonera).

The question is so intriguing that I have written a paper on it (available on ssrn, see here). Many of you will be familiar with my take: the case law is clearer than most commentators tend to concede. As I have explained in past papers, it is all about the remedy.

Where intervention under Article 102 TFEU would demand the administration of a proactive remedy (either a structural remedy or a prescriptive obligation that necessitates monitoring), indispensability becomes an element of the legal test (and thus a precondition for intervention).

Why the remedy determines whether indispensability is an element of the legal test

Support for this position can be found in the case law. In fact, the EU courts were explicit about the point in Van den Bergh Foods. According to this ruling, indispensability would be an element of the legal test where intervention would require the firm to ‘transfer an asset or enter into agreements with persons with whom it has not chosen to contract’.

The case law makes a lot of sense. Proactive remedies are notoriously difficult to design, implement, and monitor – the experience with Microsoft I and Microsoft II is there for all to see. Therefore, it makes sense to limit to exceptional circumstances the instances in which competition law institutions (courts, authorities) are exposed to this particular stressor.

This is all the more sensible if one considers, in addition, that weighing the ex ante and ex post dimensions of competition is as difficult an exercise, if not more.

From an ex post perspective, any refusal to deal restricts competition. Why is a refusal to start dealing typically abusive only in exceptional circumstances, then? Because the ex ante dimension of competition – the counterfactual, again – also matters. In this regard, indispensability is a valuable proxy to avoid a difficult balancing exercise (even if one ignores the difficulties, mentioned above, around the design, implementation and monitoring of proactive remedies).

Implications for ‘grey area’ cases

Indispensability is a controversial issue in some pending ‘grey area’ cases. What is interesting about these is that they come across as being somewhere in between two lines of case law.

Slovak Telekom is one of these cases. Some of the practices at stake in the case were labelled as a refusal to supply. Does it follow that indispensability should be required? Not necessarily, the Commission argued. I concur with it (and the General Court, which has already examined the question).

Why? In the circumstances of Slovak Telekom, the infringement could be brought to an end without resorting to proactive remedies. The usual reactive intervention (a cease-and-desist order) was more than enough.

The issue arose again in Google Shopping. Unlike Slovak Telekom, the infringement could only be brought to an end by means of proactive remedies (in essence, a redesign of Google’s products). The difficulties that come with the design, implementation and monitoring of such measures have become apparent in the aftermath of Google Shopping (and as far as I can tell, these difficulties have not yet been solved; see here).

In Google Shopping, the Commission refers to the principle laid down in Van den Bergh Foods.

Why does it conclude that indispensability is not required? It is all about its interpretation of the principle.

Google Shopping suggests that, so long as the Commission does not formally mandate a proactive remedy, indispensability is not an element of the legal test. According to this view, if the Commission simply requires that the infringement be brought to an end, Van den Bergh Foods would not be relevant.

As I explain in the paper, I am not sure this is the most reasonable interpretation of Van den Bergh Foods, and this, for two main reasons.

First, the interpretation advanced in Google Shopping would give the Commission the discretion to decide when indispensability is an element of the legal test and when it is not.

In other words, this interpretation would turn an issue of law (the conditions to establish an infringement), subject to full judicial review, into one left to the discretion of the authority (and thus subject only to limited review).

Second, the EU courts have always placed substance above form. As a result, I fail to see how the relevance of indispensability can depend on what a decision formally requires – as opposed to what it entails in substance.

It remains to be seen whether the case law will prove resilient. The pressure to circumvent and/or abandon the consistent doctrine since Commercial Solvents is strong. I claim in the paper that, if the case law is to survive, the underlying principles would probably have to be spelled out more clearly.

Before I forget: I am delighted to clarify that, in accordance with the ASCOLA declaration of ethics, I have nothing to disclose.

I really look forward to your comments!