Author: Tom Smith
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Best of both worlds: Big Tech regulation down under
Australia was an early pioneer of digital markets analysis and regulation, having investigated these issues since 2017. The ACCC has highlighted concerns about competition in digital markets in nine excellent reports during its 5-year Digital Platform Services Inquiry, which concludes in March 2025. In September 2022, the fifth report set out the concrete recommendations for…
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The Vodafone/Three merger: the CMA seems inclined towards a gruelling remedy, but it’s not yet a done deal
The CMA never clears a merger on the basis of behavioural remedies. Such remedies do not deal with the source of the competition problem, they are susceptible to circumvention, they distort markets, and they are difficult to monitor. Everyone knows that. The CMA was so wedded to this principle that it was willing to die…
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Vodafone/Three switcheroo: would the introduction of a different fourth player get the merger through?
If Vodafone and Three merge, it will be the first time that the UK telecoms market would have less than four network operators since Orange and One2One entered the market in the early 1990s. The CMA would nowadays be expected to block 4-to-3 mergers, especially where there is little chance of a new market entrant,…
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The UK’s digital markets regime is now law: 10 talking points
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (“DMCC”) Act is finally now law in the UK. The King signed his assent today (although his views on conflicts of interest in the ad tech stack are still unknown). The legislation was passed in the “wash-up” process on the final day of this Parliament and the country is…
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Vodafone/Three: a standalone decision or a potential reversal of spectrum policy?
Spectrum is all around us. These invisible waves are essential for devices that communicate wirelessly. Whether using a mobile phone to make a phone call, send a text message or browse the web, the device will use spectrum to connect to a local mast and carry out your connection command. Only a finite amount of…
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Vodafone/Three: UK telecoms consolidation will be given a rough ride through the merger control process
The UK’s mobile sector is highly competitive. Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, has spent the last few decades carefully designing spectrum auctions and other measures to foster fierce competition among the four mobile network operators. I’m currently paying £10 ($12.70) per month for unlimited 5G data on the best network for coverage. When I was at…
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UK digital markets regime under attack, but still on course
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill is now in the Report Stage in Parliament before it heads to the second chamber, the House of Lords. Trawling through the 87 pages of proposed amendments this week, I was tempted to reach for a hackneyed Winston Churchill quote: “Many forms of Government have been tried, and…
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YouTube should be designated under the UK’s forthcoming DMCC regime
YouTube has over 47 million UK monthly users, equating to 92% of the British online population. It is the country’s most visited website (sometimes second to Google.com), one of the most downloaded apps from Apple’s App Store, comes pre-installed on Android devices, and boasts over 700 million hours of its content watched daily on connected…
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The FTC’s landmark case against Amazon tackles the central issue of e-commerce market power
Since Lina Khan – famously an Amazon critic – was appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a significant lawsuit against Amazon has been expected. The lawsuit was finally launched on Tuesday, brought jointly by the FTC and 17 state attorneys general. The FTC says that Amazon has raised its fees and commissions, cluttered…
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Amazon/iRobot: Does Amazon have an incentive to preference its own products?
We have previously posted about Amazon’s acquisition of the robot vacuum cleaner (“RVC”) brand, iRobot, for $1.7 billion. The case has now been cleared by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) at Phase 1, and referred to Phase 2 for an in-depth investigation by the European Commission. We therefore have another case of diverging…