Bargaining Power Imbalances in Platform-to-Business relations: Between Competition Law and Regulation

In recent years, digital platforms have become essential infrastructures in today’s economy, as they enable digital transactions between buyers and sellers. However, due to network effects and other sources of market power, digital platform markets tend to be highly concentrated. Therefore, digital platforms could abuse their market power vis-à-vis users by engaging in exclusionary or exploitative conduct. While extensive consumer regulation is in force in the EU as consumers are regarded as the weaker party in B2C transactions, no or little protection is deemed should be granted to business in B2B transactions, as these transactions are supposed to happen between peers. However, this might not be true in P2B relations, where business users are the weaker party due to digital platforms’ structural market and bargaining power. This research investigates the legal protection of business users in platform-to-business (P2B) relationships within the European Union's legal framework, but, given their significance for business users, focuses only on so-called transaction platforms, ie. digital platforms that facilitate transactions between two or more groups of users. The analysis is structured across three chapters. The first chapter aims at developing a theory of platform-to-business relations by defining the concepts of digital platforms, business users, platform-to-business relations and abusive conduct, developing a taxonomy of platforms, and identifying the main economic features of transaction platforms markets. It further identifies the main provisions within the EU legal system that could potentially address power imbalances in platform-to-business relationships. The second chapter scrutinizes the three key legislative bodies that have been identified in the first chapter, namely Article 102 TFEU, Regulation (EU) 1150/2019, and the Digital Markets Act. The analysis conducted in the second chapter involves comparing these provisions against the standards set in the first chapter, examining their scope of application, prohibitions and obligations, and the available remedies in order to assess if and to what extent they provide effective protection to business users in platform-to-business relations. The third chapter concludes the research by summarizing the results of the first and second chapter, and by outlining a reform proposal of harmonization of the abuse of economic dependence in the EU.