EU considers tough new competition powers
Watchdog wants to to intervene earlier in potential antitrust cases
The EU’s competition watchdog is considering tough new powers to intervene earlier in antitrust problems in an effort to avoid the type of delays it faced in the Google investigation.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, told the Financial Times she was looking at broader powers to impose so-called interim measures, which order companies to cease suspected anti-competitive behaviour even before there is a formal finding of wrongdoing.
“The French have been very successful in doing interim measures for quite some time and that is, of course, of interest to us,” said the commissioner.
A move by the European Commission to adopt such powers would give the world’s most active antitrust authority a much wider range of options to impose itself on dominant companies and shape behaviour in fast-moving markets such as the digital sector.
The commission at present must prove a company is causing “irrevocable harm” before imposing “interim measures” — a high threshold that means it is virtually impossible to use.
“If you have a tool in the toolbox of interim measures then of course you should consider why is it that it’s never used,” said Mrs Vestager.
The commission is watching other jurisdictions to learn how to have a “more workable” tool. “To boil it down, it’s not being used because of the very, very high bar of irreparable harm,” she added.
However, there were no concrete plans to change the rules just yet. She said the commission “had a lot of thinking to do” and was still trying to be “rather thorough than quick in this”.
Comparison shopping rivals had asked EU authorities to intervene to stop Google’s behaviour years ago, at a much earlier stage in the commission’s eight-year probe into the search giant.
Some rivals claim they were run out of business during the years it took to reach a decision, saying the abusive behaviour drained their sites of traffic, revenue and investment.
Brussels has gradually attempted to strengthen the legislative framework for antitrust enforcement, but big changes are rare. New EU regulations came into force this year that gave parties additional powers to seek damages based on antitrust decisions.
Mrs Vestager pointed out that anyone who had suffered damage from Google’s illegal behaviour could “claim compensation from Google before national courts” when she announced her decision to fine Google €2.4bn. “So, this decision requires Google to change the way it operates and face the consequences of its actions.”
Also under consideration is a new merger threshold that would require companies to seek European approval for acquisitions where the price paid was over a certain amount. Currently companies only need to seek approval for a deal when both generate sufficient sales in the EU.
“We had a public consultation on, among other things, merger thresholds working from the hypothesis that we may have a merger that does not meet our thresholds because turnover has not showed yet, but you still have a very valuable company because of the potential of data and how it will work in the future,” said Mrs Vestager.
German authorities have put in place a new rule to examine takeovers of companies active in the country where the price is more than €400m. The commission is watching Berlin closely and evaluating the responses to its public consultation on merger control that ended in January.
“It is a very good thing for us to see what works well in member states, both when it comes to merger thresholds but also, for instance when it comes to the use of interim measures,” said the commissioner.