Introduction

Abstract

The Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector has changed our lives in more profound ways than we can imagine. Against the fascinating backdrop of digitalization, this book seeks to answer one fundamental question: How should competition authorities assess mergers in the ICT sector to promote competition in innovation?

A closer look at the question reveals that it is far more complex and difficult to answer for the ICT, telecommunications, and multisided platform (MSP) economy vis-à-vis the other traditional sectors of the economy. This has led many scholars to rethink and question whether the current merger control framework is suitable for the converged ICT sector, oftentimes also referred to as the new economy. Considering the complexity of the subject, this book further divides the fundamental question—‘design of an effective merger control framework for the ICT sector’—into a number of sub-questions. To answer them, the book is divided into four parts. The first part of this book deals with merger review, whereas the second part concerns merger remedies. During the course of my research, I found that big data and the MSPs add an even more complex dimension to merger control. They raise some peculiar challenges—such as the ‘economics of free’—which put the very basic principles of neo-classical economics to question. Moreover, just as the currency of the real world seems to progress from coins to bitcoins, the personal data of the platform users has emerged as the new currency of the data-led economy. Packaging, one of the four Ps in marketing, is key to sell the product in the real economy. In the virtual world this ‘P’ gets replaced by ‘D’ that is the ‘design’. The design of the MSPs has a psychological dimension as well, considering that they keep the users hooked on to the website, spend longer time periods, and in the process share more information about themselves. Considering this special nature of the MSPs, big data mergers are dealt with as a separate chapter in Part III of the book. Part IV comprising of Chap. 18 presents the key findings of the book and offers a roadmap for further research on the subject.

The work will be highly beneficial for the competition law scholars, as the book is an updated edition on the latest practices in the sector (until 31 December 2018). Substantially speaking, the book well highlights the substantial aspects and principals of merger control in the ICT sector by the EU, the UK, the USA, and the Chinese competition authorities. The book also has a normative dimension as it seeks to assist the competition agencies in evaluating mergers and designing remedies in the innovation-led ICT sector. The research seeks to develop a framework against the backdrop of which the competition authorities can evaluate whether the various available remedies can perform the balancing act of preventing anticompetitive conduct while preserving merger-specific efficiencies. The research seeks to fill the existing literature gap by providing an overview of various available remedies and the set of factors that need to be taken into account while selecting suitable remedies for the innovation-led ICT, MSPs, and the telecommunications sector.