To Comment or not to Comment on the Ex Ante Rules for Gatekeepers (+ 9 Other Questions on the Draft Proposals)

By Alfonso Lamadrid (Chilling Competition)

Until today, I had avoided commenting publicly on the ex ante regulatory instrument that the Commission is considering for “platforms acting as gatekeepers”. There were three reasons for this. First, unlike the New Competition Tool, I did not see this initiative as a threat to competition law as we know it. Second, I do understand that there is a certain public anxiety about digital markets (to some degree justified, to some degree exaggerated by interested stakeholders), and a margin for regulation to legitimately address that anxiety and improve things. Third, my opinions could be legitimately criticized as biased because an important part of my work is to advise and represent companies targeted by this initiative. My thinking was that there were already enough people with professional interests making noise in all directions for me to contribute to the cacophony.

Alas, my reasoning on those three fronts has changed after reading the bold leaked drafts that circulate widely since last week. First, I now see a risk that the ex ante rules might have a much greater impact on competition law than I had anticipated. Second, it seems that the current plans might not always be addressed at the issues causing public anxiety, but to a large extent target issues at the core of pending competition cases. Third, I will not falsely pretend my opinions are neutral, but I hope they might add some value to the debate. Experts working against my clients have also  authored some of the influential reports that the leaked documents cite as evidence supporting the need for intervention and, to be sure, I don’t think their views should be disqualified. In addition, given that the rules appear to be crafted to affect only a remarkably limited number of services, it is likely that a majority of stakeholders will feel relieved and/or might not have incentives to voice out concerns, so you might not be exposed to many contrarian views. And even if you are, a lot of the commentary out there seems somewhat radical.

As in other matters, there is excessive polarization here, and even a tendency to look at things through myopic and binary (progressive vs conservative) lenses. Some partisans of regulation invoke “progressive” attitudes as a reason to favor these initiatives. Others claim that they oppose them in line with “conservative” principles. In reality, though, this debate has very little to do with politics. There are media companies who support Trump, Brexit and deny climate change that also support these initiatives (provided they only target their rivals, of course). There are also conservatives who want more regulation and antitrust intervention (even if arguably not always for the right reasons; e.g. at a recent antitrust hearing a Republican Congressman claim Google should be regulated because it favours WHO health advice over Trump’s…). And then there is a vast majority of other perfectly reasonable companies or stakeholders who have legitimate commercial/professional interests in these initiatives passing, or not passing, regardless of politics.

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