Margin squeeze is a form of abuse of a dominant position in which a vertically integrated company reduces the margin between the price charged to competitors and the price charged to consumers, which can have the effect of excluding a competitor from the market. In the decade or so since the liberalisation of network industries, margin squeeze has become a major source of concern among competition authorities and courts, particularly pronounced in the electronic communications sector. Because some of the adopted decisions show significant inconsistencies in approach, and legal certainty remains elusive in this area, this book which provides an extremely thorough analysis is both timely and of great practical value. The author provides an in-depth examination of margin squeeze allegations in the electronic communications sector with a view to developing a more advanced and comprehensive analysis of principles which should guide ex post assessment of margin squeeze. Issues and topics covered include: – scope of intervention in margin squeeze cases both for national regulatory and national competition authorities; – conditions for sanctioning margin squeeze under Article 102; – methodological and practical difficulties in identifying a margin squeeze; – methodology employed in margin squeeze cases and its regulatory aspects; – assessment of the ability and incentives of regulated firms to engage in a margin squeeze; and – situations when competition law is used to address the deficits of regulation and regulatory failures. It also includes a critical comparison of the vertical foreclosure analysis undertaken in margin squeeze cases with the approach adopted in the EU Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. Throughout the analysis, margin squeeze treatment in the European Union and its Member States is examined in light of the diverging approach adopted by the US Supreme Court. The increasing complexity of the electronic communications market can only further confound an already complex assessment of price squeezes, and one can expect that claims of anticompetitive margin squeeze in liberalised network industries will continue to be high on the enforcement agenda of competition authorities for years to come. In light of the need for a coherent, or at least predictable, sentencing policy to provide relative legal certainty, the research in this book proves invaluable. The analysis and conclusions discussed in this book will be welcomed by policymakers, regulators, and lawyers working in the areas of competition law and electronic communications law.

A margin squeeze is an exclusionary form of abuse of a dominant position that a vertically integrated firm can implement when it sells its upstream bottleneck input to its downstream competitors. Because it is vertically integrated, the dominant incumbent can reduce the margin between the input price charged to competitors and the retail price charged to end-users by either raising the price of the input and/or lowering the price of its retail product/services to such an extent that the remaining margin of profit is insufficient for its rivals to remain competitive. Although the scenario of margin squeeze seems to be rather simple, the underlying economic and legal theories are not. Consequently, detecting a margin squeeze requires competition authorities to apply a complex imputation test, which in turn requires various methodological choices that can determine the outcome of the investigation. The principal purpose of the dissertation is to determine whether the European Commission's margin squeeze decisions are consistent with EU case law. The dissertation examines two alternative hypotheses. Under hypothesis A, margin squeeze is presented as a deviation from the essential facilities doctrine, which could be seen as an expression of regulatory competition law. Hypothesis B assumes that it constitutes another form of vertical foreclosure, the main question then being under what exact conditions foreclosure is likely in network industries where the margin squeeze doctrine traditionally applies. Two conclusions follow from the analysis. First, margin squeeze constitutes another theory of vertical foreclosure, and accordingly cannot be seen as an unjustified deviation from refusal to deal and essential facilities cases. Second, to ensure that the theory of harm in margin squeeze cases is credible, competition authorities could enhance their current analytical framework by regularly reviewing various additional elements, in particular the extent to which the wholesale product is important for downstream competition.

This book brings satisfying definition and clarity to this field at last. Exploring the substantive differences between competition law and sector-specific regulation after the methodological integration, it presents the first detailed analysis of the many hundreds of notifications and Commission letters generated under the Article 7 procedure, identifying the most relevant cases dealing with market definition, market power, and remedies. It compares these decisions with relevant competition law cases and highlights elements with a bearing on sector-specific regulation. It also offers hugely valuable guidance through the vast amount of documents in the Commission’s CIRCA database. Topics and issues raised include the following: definition of product markets; delineation of geographic markets (including sub-national); different practices in relation to assessing single market power and collective market power; and competition problems such as refusal to deal, margin squeeze, non-price discrimination, and excessive pricing. There can be little doubt that this is the new reference point for researchers and practitioners in this domain. By systematically categorizing the concepts and legal criteria and building a solid theoretical framework on the intersection of competition law and sector-specific regulation, the author has created a resource that is sure to be welcomed by all those involved in regulation of electronic communications markets and network industries in general: academic scholars, telecommunications regulators at the EU and Member State levels, competition authorities, law firms specializing in IT/communications law, practitioners in IT and telecommunications companies, and consultants in the sector. The book will also prove very useful for scholars and practitioners in other parts of the world interested in comparing the EU system with their own.

A margin squeeze occurs when a vertically integrated company, dominant in the supply of an indispensable upstream input, pursues a pricing policy which prevents downstream competitors from trading profitably, thereby leading to their ultimate exclusion from the downstream market.In the telecommunications sector, where large ex-State firms still enjoy considerable market power, margin squeeze has long been frequent. Interestingly, the United States and the European Union have tackled this problem in considerably different ways. Dismayed by the idea of an antitrust court intervening in a company's price setting, the US Supreme Court held that margin squeeze was exclusively the domain of regulation. Conversely, the Court of Justice of the European Union has endorsed a modern economics-based approach enabling competition authorities to engage in a coherent and verifiable antitrust assessment of the price differentials that potentially amount to a margin squeeze.This paper will argue that (1) the economics-based approach is the right solution in the European context, but that (2) this approach will only lead to convincing results if it includes a rigorous and transparent analysis of the effects on competition and consumers.

Liberalization in the telecoms sector in the EU, launched in the late 1980s, implied inter alia an added obligation on the vertically integrated incumbent operator to grant potential entrants wholesale access to the natural monopoly elements of its network. There could thus be seen post liberalization, an unusual escalation in discriminatory practices by telecommunications operators, more so in what is known as 'margin squeezing' paralleling the positive results of progressive measures as they created a market structure wherein new entrants who sought to compete with incumbent operators, required, at the same time, access to their upstream inputs. Inevitably thereafter, competition law proceedings in this regard were launched in several Member States of the EU. The need to prevent this pricing practice became pressing also for the NRAs who were regulators of wholesale and retail telecommunications prices. The focus of the present paper, as against this backdrop, shall be on Margin Squeeze, incidences of which were seen in the EU Telecommunications Sector around the time of the advent of the 2002 Regulatory Framework. The paper is divided into two Parts. Part 1 gives a brief overview of the stream of changes ushered in by the liberalization process in the European telecommunications sector, discussing the positions immediately before and after it had begun; and Part 2, which is on the problem of margin squeeze abuses in the sector, consists, in essence, of a study of the issues that arose in the DT case, of the Decision delivered by the Commission, and general observations of the approach adopted by European courts in such cases.