Article 102 TFEU has been criticised in the past for being too formalistic and lacking in economic analysis. If these comments are true when considering traditional manufacturing industries, then these criticisms are of even more importance when dealing with the high technology markets for it is these markets the determine the future prosperity of Europe. High technology markets are characterised by rapid innovation, a reliance on intellectual property rights and are seen by many as being prone to market failure as a result off inefficient lock-in arising through the economic theory of network effects. As such it is questionable whether traditional means of applying European competition law are suitable in their application to the high technology markets. Tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, Apple and Intel have found themselves in the European Commission's crosshairs. More recently the European Parliament has voted in favour of breaking up Google in response to its alleged anticompetitive conduct. The case against Microsoft and more recently the Commission's investigation into Google provide an ideal starting point upon which to judge whether European competition law, as it is currently interpreted, is suited to deal with the high technology markets. Have the authorities' decisions made any real impact on the way the market operates? Have consumers benefited from their decisions? If the answers to these questions are no, it raises the further questions: what other tools are available when attempting to deal with competition issues within the high technology sectors? The technology sectors present competition law with a unique set of challenges and, with this in mind, the authorities may need to be careful when applying principles that were originally applied to markets that exhibited more 'traditional' economic characteristics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:675586 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Ooi, Stephen Tien-Sung |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=228072 |
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