As the fast-moving digital economy has quickly grown, mergers in this sector have continued to increase in numbers. Antitrust regulators, private practitioners and undertakings have had to face this challenge head-on. Does traditional merger analysis remain effective under these new and constantly changing circumstances? Our February Chronicle attempts to shed light on this question.
Our Mergers in the Digital Economy Issue, part two of a three part series focusing on the Digital Economy, is heavily focused in Europe where competition authorities have been active in reviewing these transactions. Nevertheless, we open with a U.S. perspective, FTC Commissioner McSweeny & Brian O’Dea focus their article on the importance on looking at the long run and the dynamic aspects associated with these merger transactions.
At the heart of the debate on mergers in the digital economy are the consequences of Big Data and network effects. Some of the questions posed by antitrust authorities on both sides of the Atlantic include: What are some of the ways in which data’s uses can be considered problematic when mergers bring together large sets of data?
We invite you to read this issue and stay tuned for our last Chronicle on Digital Markets focusing on Intellectual Property.
As always, thank you to our great panel of authors.
